


Shifting In With Feelings (Of A Sweet Surrender)

by nothingwithoutyouxo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:18:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8274295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingwithoutyouxo/pseuds/nothingwithoutyouxo
Summary: After a cheating scandal involving Hollywood power couple Jackson Whittemore and Lydia Martin, in order to save her career Lydia needs to freshen up her image. Her team finds a solution to this by instructing her to fake date up-and-coming journalist, Stiles Stilinski. Lydia, while still in shock and confused about how Jackson could betray her in this way is having a hard time adjusting to this change in her love life.





	1. Cold As You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corinnemaree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinnemaree/gifts).



> So there's this thing that I've been working on all year, on and off. I stopped watching Teen Wolf a while ago (after season 3), but I never gave up on these two and with the final season rolling around I thought there would be no better time to post this fic. I've got more than a few chapters ready and I'll be posting them weekly from now on. The title is taken from the song Revelator by The Paper Kites, and the chapter title is Cold As You by Taylor Swift.
> 
> This is dedicated to my lovely friend, Corinne, who has been cheering me on for months as I wrote this (and also gave me the title, bless you dear).

_ (“And when you take, you take the very best of me”) _

 

_ “And today in Hollywood, Jackson Whittemore has been spotted getting loved up with someone who is not his longtime girlfriend and Hollywood’s sweetheart, Lydia Martin. Whittemore and the woman, who has not yet been identified, can be seen holding hands, embracing and sharing a loving kiss while sneaking around this week. Could this be the end of everyone’s favourite couple? We’ll have more for you later in the morning”. _

 

Lydia felt herself go numb, her heart found its way to her stomach and froze, unable to take her eyes away from the tv in front of her as the ads played. She wasn’t usually one to watch the morning news but she’d gotten up a little earlier than usual today so she’d decided to see what else was going on in the world while she waited for Alison to arrive. She hadn’t realized that her world would be torn apart. But of course, it couldn’t be real. She’d been dating Jackson since college, they were best friends. He would never cheat on her like this. Her hands moved to grab her laptop, typing her boyfriend’s name into Google absently. She felt cold, like she had been left out in the snow for a month. The pictures were real, Jackson’s face unmistakable even with the blurriness of them. She would know him anywhere. Lydia felt sick, she found herself moving to her bathroom, hoping Alison wasn’t far off.

 

_ “Hello again, the pictures of Jackson Whittemore kissing a mystery woman have taken over magazine covers and gossip sites this morning as the news shakes Hollywood …” _

 

Alison shut off the tv after she’d let herself into Lydia’s apartment. She’d already heard all about the pictures on her drive over, and she’d made sure she let Kira know to cancel anything that Lydia had scheduled for today. She knew her best friend wouldn’t want to leave the apartment for at least a week, and even though she planned to be by Lydia’s side for as much of that time as possible, she’d already planned out how many times she could punch Jackson without him needing a hospital visit. She could hear Lydia in the bathroom, crying and coughing so she made a beeline for the open door. Alison didn’t say anything, just sat behind Lydia and held her hair for her until she felt the need to speak.

 

“It’s real” Lydia breathed, voice hoarse.

 

“I know” Alison replied.

 

……….

 

The office was a flurry of activity. Phones were ringing loudly, only to be yelled into when answered. Papers were practically flying across the room as people tossed around articles from competitor sites and magazines. They were only being read in the hope that they hadn’t gotten anything new, at least not before their own site did. They were waiting impatiently for the next development, their paparazzi stationed at key locations around the city. But they were yet to get anything that wasn’t radio silence from any party. Jackson’s team were refusing to comment on the photos and the scandal. Everything was a mess. Stiles didn’t hate his job, it paid the bills and at least it was finally something in the industry he wanted to be in. Maybe one day it would lead to bigger and brighter opportunities, but right now he dealt with writing articles for a gossip site. His heart was a little broken for Lydia, he’d always been a fan of her and her work and he felt that she deserved better than this. In fact, he kind of ...  really wished that he could punch Jackson Whittemore in the face. But of course that wasn’t his place.

 

“Stiles!” Stiles looked up from his laptop screen at the sound of his name. He noticed Isaac, his friend and co-worker beaming at him, his eyes alight with childlike wonder. “This is our best story in months!”.

 

“It’s tragic” Stiles replied, leaning back in his chair and spinning his pen between his fingers.

Isaac leaned against Stiles’ desk absently. “Yes, but this could be the breakthrough we need!”.

 

Stiles nodded, giving in to the contagious smile Isaac was giving him. “We’ll need to keep on top of things if we want that. Aren’t you supposed to be writing a column?” he smirked.

 

“I got a little distracted” Isaac admitting, bowing his head slightly.

 

“I think you should get back to that first before we start worrying about breakthroughs” Stiles laughed.

 

Stiles’ felt his phone vibrate in this pocket as Isaac returned to his desk, weaving between the chaos of the office on his way.

 

_ Scott: With this new Lydia thing it looks like you may have a chance ;) _

 

Stiles’ groaned and decided to try and cash in a few favours with his journalist buddies to try and get a lead on the story.

……….

“I don’t ever want to see him again” Lydia muttered. She was curled up on the couch in her apartment with Alison on one side and Kira, her assistant, on the other. A half-empty tub of ice cream was sat on her glass coffee table next to a copy of The Notebook.

 

“I know” Alison replied, her hand rubbing soothing circles on Lydia’s back.

 

“What you need to do now is be strong. There’s a ton of paparazzi outside right now and you don’t have to do it today but soon you’re going to have to leave this apartment” Kira added.

 

Lydia nodded. She knew that she had a responsibility to uphold her image but right now she could only think of all the lies Jackson had told her. She wondered how long this had been going on, how long those lies had been in place. She wanted to confront him about it eventually, even though she knew she probably wouldn’t be able to take the words he would give her. She reached for the tub of ice-cream.

 

“Out of all of the romantic movies in the world there must be something less heartbreaking than this” Alison mused, looking across at Kira.

 

“You’re right, I don’t think this is helping” Kira muttered. “Maybe we should try something more lighthearted”.

 

……….

 

It was getting late at the office and Stiles’ fellow journalists were starting to make their way home. The excitement was starting to dwindle as the reality of a day without a new lead slipped in. Isaac patted Stiles’ on the back before leaving, said something about getting a text from his housemates that they were going for Mexican food and not wanting to miss out. Stiles’ leaned back in his chair and sighed, cracking his knuckles absently. Looking over to the windows he could see the sun was already setting. Stiles spun a pen in his hand, wracking his brain for some lead that he might have missed. Something that he could do. But ever since Isaac had mentioned food he was starting to realise how hungry he was. A message tone  _ blinged  _ on his laptop and he skimmed the email with tired eyes, but his excitement soon returned following the meaning of the words. He finally had a lead.

 

“I’ve got a name!” Stiles yelled. It didn’t have the effect it would had during the day, since there was only a few of them left in the office, but the satisfaction was still present.

 

……….

 

The woman wasn’t anyone too important. Her name was something like Jazz and she was a dance instructor in downtown LA. None of that mattered to Lydia, at least, she tried not to think about it. But her mind would always end up at the questions “ _ what does this woman have that I don’t?”  _ and “ _ how could he do this to us?” _ . She wasn’t bitter, she didn’t hate this woman for sweeping Jackson off his feet in a way that she hadn’t. If he wanted to stray in the way he had then it would have happened, whether it be this woman or another and Lydia was slowly coming to the realization that Jackson wasn’t shit. And he definitely didn’t deserve her tears. Alison helped her gather all the things that she had in her apartment that belonged to Jackson -and that he’d given to her - and they sent them back to him. They collected all the photos Lydia had of them and placed them in a box that they placed at the bottom of Lydia’s cupboard. Removing everything that reminded her of Jackson finally allowed Lydia to clear her head and she felt ready to leave her apartment after about a week from the news breaking.

 

Kira continued to make sure that Lydia’s schedule was clear for a few weeks. She didn’t want her friend to feel overwhelmed by work stuff, she just really wanted Lydia to be ok and feel like herself again. She and Alison made sure Lydia looked drop dead gorgeous that day and they all went out to lunch. They were seen but Lydia kept a strong front, ignoring any questions that were thrown her way by desperate paparazzi. And Kira and Allison were both very proud of her.

……….

 

Details were slowly making their way into the spotlight as the week went on. Jackson confirmed his relationship with this new woman. He made no confirmations on the cheating, though everyone knew it was true. Fans were divided as the hastag #TeamLydia surfaced and an overwhelming amount of support surrounded the star. Lydia and her team still made no official statements other than to tell the media that Lydia was doing alright without Jackson. Her Twitter became a flood of positive quotes and pictures of her and her friends without directly addressing the break up. Isaac kept commending her team on that one, a great marketing move to try and push focus onto Lydia’s upcoming roles instead of her personal life. There were rumours left right and center and less distinguished gossip mags tried to pull up as much dirt as they could, and made things up to fill in the gaps when they found minimal leads.

 

Pictures began making their way onto magazine covers and gossip sites as the “college sweethearts” bumped into each other at a premier late into the week. Headlines claiming that there had been fights on the red carpets and scorn between the two of them at an after party. Stiles didn’t believe any of it for a second. Lydia was well known in the industry for her professionalism and class. No one that has ever met her, interviewer or otherwise, had anything bad to say about her and it was a little upsetting that she was being manipulated and painted in a certain way to benefit the gossip train. There were rumours that she was auditioning for Scarlet Era, which was being set up to be the greatest action film in at least a decade. With anticipation growing for the new film everyone was waiting for Lydia’s next move. 

 

……….

 

Lydia decided that the best way to approach this was with her head held high, just like her mother had always taught her. She’d had a meeting with her team and they’d collectively decided that the best way to approach this was to try and force focus away from Lydia’s personal life as much as possible. Dating wasn’t to be mentioned in interviews or press conferences for any upcoming projects, questions would be screened so this could be avoided. They had to move full steam ahead and focus solely on her current projects and how proud of them she was, what it was like working on them and how she hoped they would be received positively. She was going to talk a lot about the fans and how much their support meant to her, not necessarily because of a break up but just in general. Her team hoped that that would shift the focus of the media so that Lydia could build herself up again.

 

To kick start this they were setting up an interview with an up and coming journalist from a popular site that would help them paint Lydia in a positive light. They told her that his name was Stiles Stilinski and that they knew this would help her career in the best way possible. Lydia knew she had a good team, and she trusted them. So she agreed to the interview and she hoped that maybe if she threw herself back into her work, she would start feeling like herself again.

 

……….

 

Stiles wasn’t usually called into the boss’ office - that only happened back when he was an intern and the boss needed someone to do a coffee run - so to say he was nervous would be an understatement. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong lately, he’d gotten a new lead in the story which was trending on the website the next day. And was still trending a little throughout the internet as the news waved its way through different time zones and fans. His hands were a little sweaty and he hoped he didn’t look like he was shaking as he knocked the the large wooden door that led to where most employees did not dare go. 

 

“Come in”.

 

Mr. Finstock wasn’t a terrifying man by appearance. He wasn’t a terrifying man by reputation either, every altercation Stiles had had with him so far was nothing but completely fine and not scary at all. But Stiles’ mind was running a mile a minute and he couldn’t figure out why he was being called to Finstock’s office in the middle of the day unless he was getting fired. And if he was getting fired he had no reason why that would happen. He wasn’t sure what he’d done but he hoped he could talk his way out of whatever was going to happen next.

 

“Well don’t just stand there Stilinski, sit down” Mr. Finstock threw a hand out in front of him to indicate the seat in front of his desk.

 

Stiles felt like he was back in school at the principal’s office because Scott had been caught doing something stupid and of course he was there because he was always with Scott. Ride together and die together, brothers for life. But Scott wasn’t with him now. Scott was at home sleeping away the tiredness of a double shift at the hospital, the lucky bastard.

 

“Stilinski, I called you in here for a reason”.

 

_ Please don’t fire me, please don’t fire me. At least give me a good reference. _

 

“I’ve noticed that you’ve been working your ass off in here and I wanted to let you know that it’s going to pay off”.

 

_ What _ .

 

“You see, this site is a goldmine in this industry, it’s looked up to as one of the most credible sites in the world at the moment”.

 

_ I have no idea where you’re going with this _ . 

 

“And we have strong values here at the office, strong values that we put into our site. We’re dedicated, hard working and we value the truth and honesty here. Which I’m sure you’ve noticed”.

 

_ I have no idea what the fuck is going on right now. _

 

“And I think that you, maybe more than most people that work here, encompass these values”.

 

_ I … “ _ what?” _. _

 

“Stilinski, I’m going to give you an opportunity of a lifetime to advance your journalism career here with us”.

 

_ He was dreaming. He was definitely dreaming. What was going on? _

 

“We’ve been contacted by the team of Lydia Martin, I’m sure you’ve heard all about her this week. Of course, I know you’re the person responsible for most of the breakthroughs we’ve had over the past week”.

 

“I guess -”

 

“Her team have been very kind to us and they want us to send someone out to interview her. Completely separately to what’s been going on. It’s an interview that’s supposed to paint her as a well put together, hard working individual that’s completely moved on from the events of the last week”.

 

Stiles wondered when this dream was going to end. 

 

“And I’ve decided that we should send you”.

 

“What!?”. Stiles flailed and accidently kicked the chair. Pain. He wasn’t dreaming.

 

“Since you’ve been working so hard already this past week and brought us breakthroughs we decided that you would be the best candidate to send”.

 

“Mr. Finstock I don’t -”.

 

Mr. Finstock leaned forward towards Stiles, placing his hands on the desk in front of him. “Don’t let us down, Stilinski” he said.

 

Stiles left the office and had to once again pinch himself to make sure it was real. This was an opportunity of a lifetime. This was the big leagues. This was the SuperBowl of interviews. Stiles was going to faint.

 

“Stiles” he heard Isaac laugh, felt two hands holding him up. “You ok?”.

 

“Almost blacked out. All good” he muttered, shaking his head to bring himself back down to earth.

 

Isaac let go, rocked back on his heels a little. “So what happened in there?” he asked.

 

“Oh” Stiles indicated behind him to Finstock’s door. “In Finstock’s office?”.

 

“Where else?”.

 

“I got an interview. I mean - I’m doing an interview … for the site”.

 

“Oh? Stiles, that’s incredible. Sure beats sitting here all day doesn’t it?” Isaac laughed, checked his watch absently. “I gotta -”.

 

“Still haven’t finished that column?” Stiles smirked. 

 

Isaac bowed his head. “It’s the topic, makes me feel like I’m writing some dumb thing for school”. 

 

Stiles nudged Isaac gently, “you just have to keep trying. If you don’t finish this one, who knows when your next column will be?”.

 

“You up for some Mexican later?”.

 

“Sure, I’ll let Scott know. If that idiot isn’t still asleep or something”.

 

……….

 

When Stiles finally got home that night Scott was sitting on the couch in their apartment watching Star Wars. Since Stiles had forced him to watch it in preparation for The Force Awakens he hadn’t been able to stop, something about how stupid he was to ignore such a cinematic masterpiece of a series. There was a pizza box sitting on the coffee table with enough pizza left to keep Stiles happy. He flopped down on the couch next to Scott and grabbed a slice. 

 

“You look exhausted” Scott observed, eyes not leaving the TV. 

 

“Are you talking to me or Han Solo?” Stiles responded.

 

“If I was talking to Han Solo it’d be a lot sexier, trust me” Scott smirked.

 

“Dude, gross”.

 

“You gonna tell me what’s on your mind or would you prefer you hear to hear my ‘Han Solo is the perfect man speech’?”.

 

“Is it followed by your ‘Leia Organa is the perfect woman speech’?” Stiles laughed.

 

“You’ve known me for too long, Stilinski”.

 

“I get to do an interview” Stiles shrugged, reaching for another slice of pizza.

 

“Dude, what!?” That’s awesome!”.

 

“With Lydia Martin” he added.

 

Scott yelped. “Dude, that’s awesome” he repeated. “All your dreams are coming true”.

 

“Not the wet ones” Stiles smirked.

 

Scott grimaced, stole the last slice of pizza from Stiles’ hand. “This is your punishment for that” he said.

 

“How could you betray me like this?” Stiles stared at the pizza with longing eyes.

 

“There’s more in the fridge”.

 

……….

 

Lydia gazed out the window, the sound of Kira’s voice running her through what was happening that day was somewhere far off from where she seemed to be. She watched the raindrops race down the window, silently placing mental bets on which would get to the bottom first just like she did when she was little. 

 

“Lydia, are you listening?”.

 

Lydia’s attention snapped back to Kira. She turned so she could look at her friend, she knew what she had to say was important but Lydia was still a little bit in her own world. A world that she was learning without Jackson. “I am now” she muttered.

 

Kira nodded. “Ok, so his name is Stiles and he writes for one of those sites. Not the sleezy ones like Perez Hilton you know the ones -”.

 

“And?” Lydia prompted.

 

“And he’s not going to ask you any questions about he-who-must-not-be-named. You’re going to focus solely on your next project which is … ?”.

 

“Scarlet Era” Lydia nodded. She’d gotten the call the day before that she’d gotten the main roll. She audition had been a few months ago and she’d almost forgotten it. 

 

“Exactly. So just talk about how excited you are to work with the cast and the director and on a film that’s so highly anticipated and all that. Talk about the fans and how much you love them”.

 

“So everything except Jackson?” Lydia asked.

 

“He won’t be mentioned, we’ve made sure”.

 

“It’s fine” Lydia sighed. “I’ll have to deal with it soon enough anyway”.

 

“The point of this whole thing is to try and make people forget about what happened” Kira reminded her. “It’s to focus solely on you”.

 

“And how completely ok and better I am without him. Don’t worry Kira, I won’t let you down” Lydia smiled faintly as the car door was opened for her.

 

“You never do” Kira returned her smile. 

 

Lydia was grateful that the press hadn’t been tipped off to where she was right now. She was grateful that she could walk to the doors of the building without camera flashes and people in her face. The building was the same as every other office building she’d been in. She was greeted by a nice, young, well dressed woman who was probably someone’s assistant and led to a room where there were light refreshments and a camera crew setting up. This was all something she’d done before. Something she was used to, but she just couldn’t feel comfortable in this moment. 

 

……….

 

“Do you need me to help you with that?” Scott asked. He was halfway to the door with a coffee in his hand, already in his scrubs for work but Stiles was fumbling with his tie for the tenth time in what seemed like five minutes.

 

“I know how to tie a tie, Scott” Stiles rolled his eyes, though his voice was an octave higher than usual and he had never felt so betrayed by his hands before.

 

Scott laughed and put the coffee down on the table before taking the tie out of Stiles’ hands. It was his special light blue tie that he only wore for special occasions because it was giving to him by his father. And he would hate to see it be ruined. “Fancy today, huh?” Scott smirked.

 

“I feel like I'm going to junior prom but Finstock said to look professional” Stiles shrugged.

 

Scott finished with the tie and went back to grab his coffee, checking his watch as he went. “I know you’ll do great, Stiles. Just try and relax a little. It’s not like you’re interviewing your celebrity crush since forever” Scott laughed as he made his way to the door.

 

“I hope you choke on that coffee!” Stiles called after him. He wasn’t nervous. He was just shaking for … no reason at all. This was important for his job. He just needed to make a nice impression, ask the questions, listen to the answers and then he could come back here and lock himself in his room for the rest of the night to avoid Scott mocking him. It was great. Fine. It was perfect. He’d be fine. He hoped.


	2. I Could Be In Love With Someone Like You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's Wednesday and not Thursday but I thought I'd upload this a day early because I'm super pumped for it. I wanted to thank you all for the positivity you showed on the first chapter of this (especially those that commented because you were all so nice!!!), I really appreciate that and it motivates me to keep working at making this the best it can be.   
> The song from this chapter is I Could Be In Love With Someone Like You from the musical The Last Five Years (well, an outtake from that musical). I hope you all enjoy this! :)

_ (“You could be my true salvation”) _

 

Stiles hadn’t really done any interviews. He was your go to guy if you wanted a decent article, but he wasn’t your go to guy if you wanted to interview one of the world’s biggest celebrities. He wasn’t really sure what to expect but he tried to remember what he’d learnt back in college and what he’d heard from his buddies. This wasn’t something he couldn’t handle. He was a professional after all. He had this. The fact that he’d had to change his shirt three times before leaving home because he was sweating so much was completely irrelevant. He could do this. 

 

Stiles parked his jeep in a parking lot full of expensive, probable company cars and suddenly felt incredibly out of place. Like he was kid again, that no one wanted around. But he was sent here for a reason and he wasn’t going to back down. He couldn’t let anyone down. His career needed this, and he needed to prove to himself that he could do this. As he walked into the building he tried not to think about how big his jacket felt and how his hands were sweaty or how he could fuck this entire thing up. Once he’d made it through the doors he was greeted by a girl with a clipboard that reminded him of every single girl that had been in his course at college. She was professional and put together in a way that Stiles was hoping he could seem that day. 

 

“Just this way, Mr. Stilinski” she said, starting off down the hallway.

 

“Stiles”, he corrected automatically. 

 

“You look nervous” he could hear the smile in her voice even though she was facing away from him. “First interview?” she added.

 

“Yep”.

 

“Celebrity crush?”.

 

“Yep”.

 

“She seems really nice. I’m sure you’ll be fine”.

 

“Yep”.

 

Stiles took the smile the girl was giving him as some kind of reassurance and took a deep breathe. He wiped his hands on his jeans and entered the room. The camera crew were setting up and there was a table with refreshments set up on the side. Lydia Martin was standing with two women, one was dabbing make up on her face while the other was talking to her in a soft voice. The woman’s clipboard indicated that she was the assistant this time. Stiles found it hard to breathe. Lydia was even more beautiful that he’d thought she would be. He’d seen all her films, watched pretty much every single interview that she’d done. He’d even had a poster of her on the wall of his and Scott’s dorm room. But these are all things that Stiles wouldn’t tell her. He didn’t want to come across as creepy and he was certain telling her any of those things would lead to that thought. Stiles took a deep breathe. He did his best at trying to look casual, professional and whatever else he was supposed to be right in that moment. After a few minutes he was approached by the girl with the clipboard that was previously standing next to Lydia.

 

“I’m Kira, Lydia’s assistant. You must be Stiles” she said.

 

Stiles nodded jerkily, his brain reminded him to stick out his hand.

 

She shook it and smiled, “You don’t have to try so hard”.

 

“Don’t tell anyone else but I’ve never done a proper interview before” he replied.

 

Kira’s smile turned into a little bit of a smirk. “I know. Your boss told me” she paused, “but if it makes you feel any better, you wouldn’t be here if no one thought you could do the job”.

 

Stiles nodded, grateful for the encouragement.

 

“You got your questions?”. 

 

He pulled a slightly crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and noticed when Kira tired not to laugh. She shifted the papers in her hands, freeing up her clipboard and handing it to him. 

 

“Looks more professional” she smiled.

 

“I don’t really … own one” Stiles stumbled. 

 

“You might want to try relaxing a little, looks better on camera”. Kira gave him one last smile before making her way over to the camera crew. 

 

Stiles took another deep breath and decided that maybe making his way over to the refreshments table would help. Being near food was guaranteed to calm him down and he was still kinda hovering near the doorway which probably made him look as awkward as he felt. So Stiles sucked it up and made his way over the table. The second girl had stopped dabbing make up on Lydia’s face and was just talking to her calmly.

 

“... nothing different to any other interview, probably better than them in terms of content anyway” she was saying. 

 

Stiles tried not to listen, not meaning to eavesdrop or anything but his mind was slowly catching up with the fact that he was standing almost next to Lydia Martin. 

 

The second girl stopped talking once she realised that Stiles was there and he instantly felt guilty for interrupting whatever their conversation was. 

 

“I’m Allison” she said, looking directly at Stiles, “Lydia’s stylist”.

 

Stiles’ hand went out before he realised it had and Allison shook it smiling. 

 

“And best friend” she added. “You must be Stiles”.

 

“That would be me” Stiles mumbled.

 

“I’m Lydia”. Lydia spoke with a quiet voice that Stiles wasn’t really expecting. She was even more beautiful than what she was from across the room. Stiles almost forgot how to breathe but then he remember that this was his job and he was a professional that was  _ totally capable of handling this. _

 

“Stiles” he smiled, offering her his hand. 

 

She shook it politely and returned his smile. 

 

A moment passed while Stiles tried to figure out what - and if - he should say anything. He was grateful for the clipboard that gave him something to do with his hands. 

 

“So what’s it like being a journalist?”. Stiles looked up to see Allison smiling brightly at him. “I probably would have done it but it’s hard to ignore how seedy some places can be”.

 

Stiles nodded. This is something he could talk about. “It’s something you think a lot about when you’re applying for jobs. When it gets to the point where you’re kind of desperate and it seems like everyone else is getting jobs in the industry except for you, well, you still have to try and keep your integrity”.

 

Allison nodded. She managed to look incredibly engaged even though Stiles was mostly sure that she was just doing this to keep him calm. He was grateful regardless.

 

“So you write articles?”. Stiles looked up at the sound of Lydia’s voice. 

 

“Yes” he answered. “Usually I do current news, sometimes that involves gossip things” he shrugged, “I try to gloss over that”.

 

Lydia smiled faintly. Stiles was slowly starting to realise how  _ sad  _ she looked. His heart felt heavy. 

 

“We kind of get mixed around in the office. Sometimes we’ll even do a column or two. Nothing’s really set it stone, I guess”.

 

“You’re a really good writer” Allison commended. “I think you could definitely move to bigger things eventually”.

 

“That’s the goal”.

 

“Lydia” Kira appeared, she’d somehow found another clipboard and Stiles was impressed. “Camera crew is all ready for you”.

 

Lydia nodded slowly, seeming to accept her fate. 

 

“That is, if you’re ready, Stiles” Kira added, turning her focus to him.

 

Stiles nodded. “Of course”. He heard Lydia take a deep breath and pitied her. This was obviously something she didn’t want to do. He silently made it his mission for this to go as smoothly as possible. As easy as possible. 

 

……….

 

Lydia took her seat in front of the cameras. Everyone was finding their way to their positions. The camera crew were doing some last minutes double checks and then they would be ready to go. Lydia didn’t want to feel nervous, anxious or any of the other things she was feeling now. She didn’t want her mind to keep casting back to what this interview was so perfectly avoiding. She didn’t want to see the comments that would complain about how fabricated this entire thing was, but this was something she had to do.

 

She took another deep breath, and then cast her eyes up to Stiles. He was kind, he didn’t take her for granted in the way that most interviewers did. He didn’t ignore her or fawn over her or act like her entire being was a lie. He’d even shaken her hand, not out of duty or professionalism, just to be nice. She was grateful that out of all the interviewers in the world, out of all the magazine and gossip sites and whatever else, he was the person that was picked. Because for some reason he made Lydia feel comfortable in a way she didn’t usually experience. She watched as he quickly read over his questions. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he went over everything. Yes, maybe that was a little bit amateurish, but Lydia only thought of it as being  _ real _ .

 

Stiles looked up at her and Lydia panicked for a moment because maybe she’d been accidentally staring at him to calm herself down, but all he did was smile at her.

 

“I don’t think you really have to worry about much. You can answer however you need to and l’ll just handle the rest, I guess” he said to her.

 

“You’re not worried about screwing up?” she asked.

 

Stiles rubbed his forehead absently. “A little” he admitted, “but I’m hoping all goes well”.

 

“I’ll cover for you it something happens” Lydia smiled.

 

Stiles laughed, rubbed the back of his neck and tried to avoid meeting Lydia’s eyes again. She thought that maybe he was trying not to draw attention to himself. “Thank you” he recovered.

 

One of the cameramen called out something and somewhere in Lydia’s mind she knew that meant that they were about to start. She quickly took another deep breath and switched into happy-interview mode, silently hoping that it looked good enough to pass. Lydia was impressed with how Stiles held himself. He was sitting up straighter, looking at ease even though they both knew that he wasn’t. She was comforted by the fact that neither of them really knew what they were doing. His questions were directly to the point and weren’t discriminatory in any way, not anything like what she was used to. He asked about the role directly, about how connected she felt the character, what audition processes were like, if she had any advice for aspiring actors, what it was like on set for a film and if she was intrigued by the camera techniques and anything else behind the scenes. He didn’t ask about her hair, about how long her make-up took, about her personal life. She wasn’t all that used to having questions about things that really mattered to her. Like the role, the connection, her fans. Lydia had never felt so content coming out the other side of an interview. She had nothing to be frustrated with or sad about, and she’d gotten more comfortable as the interview went on. Which usually had the opposite effect. Lydia already knew how much her fans were going to love this interview. And she couldn’t wait for them to see it.

“Thank you” Lydia said, as soon as the cameras had stopped rolling.

 

Stiles looked up at her, the confusion clear on his face. “What for?”.

 

“I’ve never really felt that at ease in an interview before” she smiled.

 

“Oh” Stiles returned her smile, “I just tried to be interesting I guess. I mean … with the questions and everything”.

 

“You did well” she laughed.

 

“Thank you”.

 

Kira appeared, already talking about the outcome of the interview and what she had lined up for the rest of the day but Lydia wasn’t really listening. She watched as Allison gave Stiles a thumbs up and said something to him that Lydia knew would have been praise. 

 

“Lydia, are you listening to me?”.

 

Her head snapped around, breaking her away from whatever thought she’d been having.

 

“I’m sorry” she muttered.

 

Kira smiled fondly, “You did a really good job”.

 

“Thank you”.

 

“I have another meeting to get to, but sadly that interview ran a little over time and considering you’re my ride we’re going to have to leave right this second” Kira gazed down at her watch, her other hand already reaching for her phone to start making calls. 

 

The camera crew ushered them all out of their way as they began attending to their equipment. Lydia found herself next to Stiles again. Kira was chatting away to who she assumed would be another one of the people on her team. 

 

“Stiles” she said quietly, watching as his eyes made their way to hers. “Try not to … cut anything out”.

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it”.

 

Lydia smiled but couldn’t reply because Kira took her arm and started pulling her towards the door saying something about the car being already outside and “ _ we better leave now before someone tips off the press” _ .

 

“Thank you again!” Lydia called over her shoulder to him.

 

“Any time” she heard his reply as they made it through the door.

 

“That went … surprisingly well” Allison said, once they were all in the car and headed off again. “He managed he handle himself very professionally even though he seemed like he was going to stumble over his words every two seconds”.

 

“I liked the questions” Lydia replied.

 

“Nothing about the entire interview was uncomfortable, that’s gotta be some kind of record” Kira mused.

 

“At least there’ll be some good press among the shit fest that’s been happening”.

 

Lydia nodded. “The fans are going to love it”.

……….

 

The only thing that Stiles knew for sure was that he was dreaming. This was just one of those hyper-realistic dreams that people had and soon he was going to wake up and probably be late for something. Stiles convinced himself that he was dreaming on the drive home. None of it was real. He hadn’t been recruited to interview Lydia Martin. He hadn’t met Lydia Martin. He hadn’t aced said interview with Lydia Martin. He was dreaming. Nothing was real. Everything was a lie.

 

Stiles unlocked the door to his apartment to find that Scott had somehow made it home before him. Obviously this was proof that he was dreaming. Scott was never home before he was, at least not in the middle of the day.

 

“You’re home early”.

 

“Ethan somehow noticed I was about to pass out regardless of the amount of coffee I’ve had today and offered to cover me for the rest of my shift so here we are” Scott shrugged.

 

Stiles wasn’t even surprised when he discovered that Scott was watching Star Wars again. The boy had a problem. He sat down next to Scott anyway.

 

“So how was the interview? And more importantly how was Lydia?” Scott smirked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

 

Stiles was about to pass out, he realised. He was coming to the end of the dream and he was going to wake up soon. He thanked the dream gods for the time he’d had. All good things had to come to an end, he guessed. He’d had a good run. Night, Scott, he thought.

 

……….

 

He was awoken to the feeling of being shaken. He could hear Scott saying his name over and over somewhere far away. But as the shaking got more insistent, he decided that he had to face the mediocre day ahead of him. He wasn’t sure why Scott was in his room, but it was nice that his friend was waking him up so he wasn’t late for work.

 

“Stiles if you don’t wake up I’m calling an ambulance” he heard Scott say. 

 

Goddamn it. Stiles pushed Scott’s hands away and made an almighty effort to open his eyes. He wasn’t in his bed, he was on the couch next to Scott. Where he had been when his dream ended. Wait …

 

“I was worried, you idiot. I thought your interview had finally caught up to you and you died”.

 

“Interview?” Stiles muttered. If it hadn’t been a dream then Stiles was the luckiest man in the world. That was until Scott whacked him across the back of the head.

 

“Wake up”.

 

“Go away”.

 

“Not until you tell me what happened” Scott demanded.

 

This is true friendship, Stiles thought to himself. He was grateful for Scott, he always was. But he was so tired … the day must have been finally catching up with him. Maybe he was in a state of shock. Scott was a doctor. He would know the answer to things like that.

 

“She’s beautiful” Stiles managed.

 

“You gonna tell me anything I don’t know?” Scott smirked.

 

Stiles rolled his eyes and sat up. He was starting to feel more awake as he went over his day in his mind. He almost felt the need to write the entire thing down in a diary like a ten year old girl. Just so he didn’t forget a single thing. “Alright. I’ll tell you” he muttered. 

 

Scott cheered and quickly turned off Star Wars, sitting back ready for the story of a lifetime. 

 

……….

 

Lydia was grateful that she didn’t have to go to any meetings or anything after. Kira had to - she most likely had to brief the rest of Lydia’s management team on how well the interview had gone - but Lydia had the rest of the day free. And Allison didn’t have anything all that important to do so the two of them ended up back at Lydia’s apartment marathoning movies, eating popcorn and talking about anything and everything. It felt like high school all over again and Lydia was so grateful. She didn’t get many moments like this. At least, she felt like she hadn’t when she’d been dating Jackson. She could feel her life coming back to her in waves. She was starting to realise that maybe she’d missed a lot when she was dating Jackson. Maybe that hadn’t been the real her, not completely. Maybe now that he was gone she could reach her full potential.

 

“Allison” she said quietly, “I’m sorry we haven’t done this is a while”.

 

Allison smiled, “we’ve both been busy”.

 

“I feel like I’ve woken up from a dream”.

 

Allison turned to face Lydia, ignoring the movie completely. “What do you mean?”.

 

“It just feels like I haven’t been myself for a while”.

 

Allison nodded, “The break up was a good thing.

 

“I hope so” Lydia smiled faintly.

 

“Do you feel more yourself now?”.

  
“After today, yes”.

 

Allison beamed, “The interview did go really well didn’t it”.

 

“Honestly, I was a little surprised” Lydia laughed.

 

“He was sweet. Might have a really good career ahead of him”.

 

Lydia nodded, “I hope so”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not 100% sure how interviews work so I made a few assumptions that seemed to make sense?   
> I'll see you all next week! :)


	3. Ease

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I'm always so pumped to post these. I guess it's because I'm actually quite proud of this story? This chapter sets the ball truly rolling, so to speak. I hope you guys like it!  
> Chapter title song: Ease by Troye Sivan

_ (“Take it back to the basics and the simple life/Tell me all the things that make you feel at ease”) _

 

Lydia was discovering that there was a drive within her to be her own person. Her real self. She’d begun going through old diaries and old photos from a time before Jackson, and she was trying to remember who she was then. She’d dated Jackson for six years. That was a large chunk of her life. It wasn’t something that she regretted, but she wished that maybe she’d woken up a little earlier. She called home and spoke to her parents. She messaged old friends that she’d lost contact with. She talked to her fans more, people that knew her and loved her regardless of whether they’d met or not. She wanted to know who she was again. It wasn’t helping that Jackson was flaunting around his new fling as if their relationship had never happened. She didn’t want to be affected by it, but she was. It wasn’t an easy thing to avoid. The media were eating it up, but it helped when the interview she’d done with Stiles was released. It helped even more when that became a hit. She watched positive messages flood in left, right and center. She was starting to feel happy in a way that was realising she hadn’t felt in a long time. And maybe that was why her relationship broke down, but none of that mattered now.

 

Lydia had watched the interview from start to finish and not only was she continually impressed with the questions, by she was also impressed with herself. In a completely modest way she was proud of the way she’d held herself and her answers even though she wasn’t feeling 100% ok that day. Even if she was still feeling a little bit that way. She’d sent it on to Allison who’d praised it as a friend. And she’d sent it on to Kira who’d praised it from a marketing standpoint. She was receiving nothing but praise from her fans, which she was happily responding to. She hoped that made her seem more real, she was starting to feel more real. Like she was becoming a real person instead of a persona that she’d been keeping up all this time. Lydia almost wished that she could ask Stiles what he thought of it, but she was sure that he was proud of it too. The article that he’d written to accompany the interview made her out to be the lovely, down-to-earth person that she seemed to be in the interview. It was encompassed with all good things. And she would be forever grateful. She could really feel Stiles in the words that he wrote, not just because she’d met him but because he put himself into his work. Most interviewers somehow managed to be completely detached from their work, however they were writing her. But not Stiles. That intrigued Lydia and she found herself thinking about seeing him again even if she knew that wouldn’t happen. At least, not until she had a good enough reason to be interviewed again. She knew it would be at least a few months before production started for her next film, there would be a few months of filming and then another few months after that for press to start. It was going to be a long wait.

 

……….

 

Stiles had never been so happy with a piece of his work before. Sure he was happy with the other articles he’d done - he’d been proud of them at the time - but this article, and the interview itself, was getting such positive feedback from professionals and from fans. Stiles was basically the ruler of the office at that point. People he saw every day but had never spoken to before were congratulating him on the quality of it. Stiles didn’t like being the center of attention, he tried to stay away from things that would be considered the spotlight for his world, but he was just so damn  _ happy _ , and Scott and Isaac had both convinced him that he deserved to take in some praise every once in awhile. He just had to convince himself that this was one of those times. 

 

Stiles had been spending a lot of time on Twitter, watching as love poured Lydia’s way as fan after fan watched the interview and sent her their support. He didn’t have a shortage of positive messages from them either. Somehow they’d adopted him into their fandom and he was confused but overall happy with it. They were being nothing but nice to him. The only thing that was missed was that Stiles wished he could pick up his phone and text Lydia. He wished he could share all of this positivity with her, and ask her if she was as proud of and as happy with the interview as he was. But that wasn’t something he could do, he wasn’t her friend and he was pretty sure he never would be, so he had to push that thought to the side. He hoped that it wouldn’t keep popping up but it did, and his heart stunted a little in its beating every time. Even though it was a little difficult Stiles was internally refusing to let that thought bring him down. He wrote article after article for work, each one better than the last. He wasn’t sure if that was because of the happiness or because he was actually getting better as a writer, but his boss seemed more than impressed with him so Stiles was happy to keep it up.

 

……….

 

A few weeks passed, the news of the interview was slowly fading only to be replaced with more bullshit that Jackson was spewing. He was doing interviews himself now, painting her in a way that she hated to see. She’d never felt so betrayed before, especially by someone who had been so close to her. Lydia was finding it harder and harder to cope as more headlines appeared. Allison was clearly distraught and Lydia was pretty sure that she would kill Jackson if she wanted her to. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wasn’t sure what that was yet but she knew that hurting Jackson wouldn’t help at all. Lydia had barely moved from her apartment, unable to keep the happy front that she had to when she was amongst cameras. Her team didn’t want her to come across as heartbroken as she felt. Yes, she’d managed to regain touch with some old friends but she was beginning to realise that if she stayed in this state of sadness she would lose them again, because some days she was too sad to reply to any messages. And sometimes she even took a few hours to respond to Allison’s, which bothered her enough as it was. 

 

Lydia was in her apartment trying her best to not watch The Notebook for the two thousandth time, especially since she was starting to hate it, when her phone started ringing. Lydia gazed at Kira’s name on her phone screen and thought about not answering it, but she knew that if she didn’t Kira would continue to call until she did. Or she would just come over to her apartment and half drag her to wherever she needed to be. So Lydia picked up the phone.

 

“Hi Kira” she said.

 

“Oh good, you picked up” Kira had that tone to her voice that meant that she in the middle of doing two hundred other things as well, though her focus was a little bit on Lydia, she wasn’t really going to be listening. “You have a meeting. Today. Here at the office. The car will be there in an hour, make sure you get in it”. 

 

And then the line went dead. Lydia expected nothing less and texted Allison to come over. Allison arrived about ten minutes later and Lydia was continually grateful that the two of them lived so close to each other.

 

“If it was just a meeting with Kira it wouldn’t really matter what you wear” Allison was saying, going through Lydia’s wardrobe, “but since it’s the whole team you have to look at least a little bit like you have your life together”.

 

Lydia nodded, happy to let Allison do what she did best.

 

……….

 

Stiles was in the middle of his newest article when his phone buzzed. He was on a roll and it was probably just Scott so he ignored it. His phone buzzed again ten minutes later so he sighed, running a hand through his hair and grabbed at it. The number was unknown to him and all the text had was an address and a time. Another text had arrived with a name and a number. Stiles quickly Googled the number in case it was a scam and was shocked at what he found.

 

One thing was certain: it wasn’t a scam.

 

……….

 

Lydia took a deep breath before walking into the boardroom. The long table was filled with faces that she barely saw, couldn’t even remember all the names of. Her management team usually prefered to contact her via Kira rather than hold meetings like this so she’d gathered that this was some serious occasion. But she had no idea what it would be about. She sat down at the end of the table, Allison sitting down to her right, and tried to look like she was 100% comfortable with the situation. 

 

Kira was at the other end of the table, once Lydia and Allison were both seated she stood. Even though in retrospect Kira should never be the one in control of meetings like this, Lydia’s team knew that the only way to get through to her was either through Kira or Allison. So Lydia deduced that whatever this meeting was about, it was something she was going to have to agree to regardless of how she felt about it. And that’s what worried her. 

 

“So” Kira started, looking down at her clipboard as it rested on the table. Lydia had never seen Kira look uncomfortable before, especially not in a meeting, that was where she shined. Anxiety was starting to grow within her. “With the events of the past few weeks we’ve been forced to make a decision”.

 

Lydia sat in silence, her leg tapping against the floor insistently. She couldn’t figure out what was happening, what was going to be said. Everything seemed to contradict itself. 

 

“In regards to how the media is receiving Lydia” Kira looked up towards Lydia and then down again briefly, avoiding the other woman’s eyes. “The hype of the the interview is dwindling and we need a new course of action to keep Lydia’s name out there, with positive connotations attached to it”.

 

Lydia’s hands were shaking, she couldn’t seem to stop the growing anxiety welling inside her. She felt Allison’s gaze on her, trying to will her to calm down, but it wasn’t working.

 

“And we decided” Kira paused and took a deep breath, “that Lydia should be seen dating again”.

 

“Dating?” Lydia breathed. She wasn’t in any state to be  _ dating  _ anyone. She looked over at Allison and could tell by the hard line of her mouth and the way her brows were pulled together that she hated this idea as much as she did, as much as Kira seemed to. 

 

“All details will be fabricated” Kira continued, “so that the media constantly has something to report on”.

 

Lydia felt sick, the only thing worse than being forced to date was being forced to date someone that had been picked for her. And picked for her by a team that barely knew her, at least not outside of the persona they had fabricated for her. The fake Lydia. She wanted to leave but knew that she couldn’t so she stayed until Kira had stopped speaking and sat down again. One of the men in suits stood, she couldn’t remember his name and at that moment she didn’t care. After he’d dismissed them her team made their way out of the boardroom. None of them spoke to her, or even looked to her as they left the room, leaving only her, Allison and Kira in their wake.

 

“Kira” Lydia managed.

 

“I know” Kira sighed, she took the seat on the left of Lydia, her clipboard crashing against the table, “I don’t like it either but everyone else thinks it’s the greatest idea of this generation. Or something”.

 

Lydia sat stock still, her hands had stopped shaking and she was vaguely aware that she was starting to get a headache. 

 

“We’ll take care of everything. We’ve picked someone that we think will go along with everything that’s happening. I know it’s not what you want, but at the moment you don’t really have a choice”, Kira sighed and redid her ponytail. “I’m sorry” she added.

 

There was a pause while the news sunk into everyone’s heads. Even Allison was too shocked to say anything. 

 

Kira leaned forward towards Lydia, taking her friends hand in hers. “Lydia, I promise this is only temporary” she said, “as soon as I can think of something that will work we’ll abandon this”.

 

Lydia nodded slowly. “Ok” she said quietly.

 

“When do we get to meet him?”Allison asked, standing up as Kira did. 

 

“Now” she replied.

 

Lydia stood, she felt a little shaky on her own feet but she knew that this was something she had to do. So she followed Kira and Allison out of the room without complaint and down the hallways of the office building. She could feel eyes on her. She didn’t want anyone’s pity, she didn’t want attention. She wanted to curl into a ball and cry and wonder when her life had turned to this. As she was led down another hallway, Lydia could have sworn that she saw Stiles as they passed reception, but they had moved too quickly. She knew it wouldn’t have been him. Stiles didn’t even work in this building, but for some reason the idea that maybe he was here calmed her just a little bit. And somehow gave her the strength to follow Kira until she was led into a room. 

 

The room itself was unremarkable, just another one of the endless offices that were in this building. There was no one inside and no name on the desk so Lydia guessed that it was void of any regular occupant. 

 

“Just wait in here and I’ll be right back” Kira said, turning towards the door. “Oh. You can sit and everything, try and make yourself comfortable” she paused, “Please”. Allison gave Lydia a sympathetic smile and followed Kira out of the room.

 

Lydia was left alone with her thoughts which, for the last few weeks, hadn’t been a great place to be. She looked around the room. There was a bookshelf that was stocked with thick leather bound books, binders and a few boxes but other than that the room was untouched. Lydia guessed that it was just used as an extra storage room. Her foot started tapping on the floor again as she waited for Kira to return.

 

……….

 

Stiles once again parked his jeep in a parking lot full of expensive cars. He was starting to wonder whether it would be best to try and save up for his own if this was going to become a regular occurrence. But his jeep had always been an extension of himself, and he would never abandon her. He looked at himself in his rear view mirror, this definitely wasn’t a place that he would fit in. He ran a hand through his hair and rolled up his sleeves, trying to feel comfortable. Stiles made his way towards the door of the building. It was just like every office building he’d seen, just like his own workplace. The only distinguishing feature being the glossy sign nailed next to the door that said:

 

_ Star Power Management _

_ Managing the Biggest Stars since 1980  _

 

Stiles took a deep breath and opened the door to the building. The reception was almost identical to that of his own building. There was leafy plants placed neatly around the perimeter, there were leather couches that were a designated waiting space. And behind a marble desk was a pretty, blonde woman. She was typing away on a laptop but looked up when Stiles entered. She offered him a bright ‘i-am-obligated-to-look-approachable’ smile, which Stiles tried his best to return. He cast another quick glance around before walking up to her. 

 

“I was sent a text” he said quietly, not wanting to break the peace in the silent building, “That I had a meeting with Kira Yukimura”. Stiles didn’t have to check the name, the text was already burned into his brain, even if it had no instructions whatsoever. 

 

“Your name, please” the woman said,

 

“Stiles Stilinski”.

 

“Ah, one moment please”.

 

Stiles watched as the woman picked up the phone next to her and dialed a number.

 

“Kira, he’s here” she said, “Of course”. The woman looked up at Stiles again, “Miss. Yukimura will be with you in a moment, if you could wait here please”.

 

Stiles would hardly consider it the passing of a ‘moment’ as he saw Kira approach him.

 

“Stiles” she greeted with a polite smile.

 

“Kira” he shook her outstretched hand. “Or should I call you Miss. Yukimura?” he smirked.

 

“Kira is fine. Follow me”.

 

Stiles fell into step next to her as he was led through reception and down a hallway. “If you don’t mind me asking” he started. “Why am I here? If you needed another interview you could have just gone through my boss. I mean, Finstock isn’t really  _ that  _ intimidating once you meet him”.

 

“You’re not here for an interview, Stiles” Kira replied.

 

“Good because I don’t have any questions ready”.

 

“You’re here for a much more personal matter” Kira stopped at the end of the hallway and turned to face him.

 

“I’m sorry?” Stiles muttered.

 

“I guess I can’t send you in without knowing what’s going on” Kira sighed, and for the first time Stiles saw that there was a person underneath all that professionalism, and she wasn’t very happy. He couldn’t tell if she was sad, stressed or a mixture of both. But he was guessing it was the latter. “Listen Stiles” she started, “we’re a very sort out for team here. This company is thriving at the moment”.

 

Stiles was confused. He was pretty sure she wasn’t leading him to a job interview.

 

“But sometimes this team is out of touch and we do things purely because we have no other options, regardless of how it may affect our clients”.

 

Stiles looked around briefly, surely Kira wouldn’t trash talk her company while she was standing in the middle of their building. 

 

“The team’s made a decision in regards to Lydia” Kira continued.

 

Stiles perked up at the mention of Lydia’s name, confusing growing even more.

 

“They think that she needs to be seen dating someone. Everything will be fabricated so the press gets as much out of this as possibly. So really, Lydia will be fake-dating this person”.

 

“So you want me write an article…?” Stiles trailed off.

 

Kira sighed again, the pressure of this situation finally getting to her. “Stiles we’re asking you to fake-date Lydia” she said.

 

Stiles looked at her, shocked by this. He wasn’t dreaming because not even his brain could make up something like this. So she had to be telling the truth. “I’m sorry?” he breathed. 

 

“I know it sounds weird and strange but we’re going to take care of everything. The reason we picked you because was you that helped us with that interview. And being the great success that it was and how fond of you the fans are, you seemed to be the best option” Kira, started walking again, down the hallway and taking a left turn.

 

Stiles kept next to her, matching her fast pace. “Ok” he said, as it started to sink into his brain. “Does Lydia know about this?”.

 

“She knows that we’ve picked someone” Kira explained, “but she doesn’t know who we’ve picked”.

 

Stiles nodded, trying to think of the best way to approach this if she wasn’t expecting him. He hoped that she didn’t hate him or anything because that would make this even more difficult than Kira seemed to believe it was. 

 

Kira stopped at a door that was as unremarkable as the hallway they were in. “Through here” Kira said. Then she stepped closer to Stiles. “Lydia hasn’t been feeling the best lately with everything that’s happening with Jackson, and she really hates the idea of this” she practically whispered. “So please, try and be her friend and make this as easy as possible for everyone”.

 

Stiles nodded mutely. He would never admit it but he was slightly intimidated by Kira.

“Oh, and you can’t tell anyone about this” she added before disappearing down the corridor again. 

  
_ Shit _ , Stiles thought to himself.  _ How the fuck am I going to do this? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta daa! That cliffhanger though.   
> Showbiz isn't my forte usually so I hope the story line is coherent enough.   
> Thank you guys so much for reading this and sticking with it. I'll see you all next week!


	4. Don't Speak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The positivity on this fic has been really heartwarming so I just wanted to thank you guys for that. This chapter's title is Don't Speak by the Jonas Brothers (I miss them terribly tbh).

_ (“There’s a lot that you don’t notice/When you read between the lines/That the future’s out of focus and you’re blinded by the light”) _

 

Stiles stared blankly at the door in front of him. He knew that he had to enter, knew that it was cruel to keep Lydia waiting like this. But Stiles could barely get around the fact that she was on the other side of the door at all. He took a deep breath and prepared to enter. Thousands of words were spinning in his head and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to form a sentence right now, but he hoped that he at least could pull something together that wouldn’t make this the worst thing in the world. 

 

Stiles reached for the brass doorknob and turned.

 

……….

 

Lydia turned when she heard the door open, but she wasn’t looking at Kira when it did. She was looking at Stiles, which of course meant that she wasn’t crazy and that he had been in the building. But her mind was slowly piecing things together. Kira said that she would return with the boy the team had picked for her, and Kira wasn’t here but Stiles was. Which meant that Stiles was who had been picked. Lydia was starting to feel very calm with the idea, at least she knew Stiles a little. It wasn’t like she was going on a blind date that went on for a while. At least she could pretend with Stiles. She was content with that.

 

“I’m sure I’m not as devilishly handsome as you were expecting” Stiles smirked. Then he paused, eyes downcast for a moment and Lydia wondered what he made him sad so quickly. Maybe he really hated this idea, hated her, hated that he was practically being forced to do this. Her heart shuddered. “Is it ok if I sit with you?” he asked, as if they were first graders in the school cafeteria.

 

“I think that’s what the extra seat is for” she smiled faintly. 

 

Stiles nodded and took the empty seat next to her. “Honestly, I’m not really sure what’s going on”. He couldn’t seem to meet her eyes and spoke to his hands in his lap instead. Lydia realised that he must have been nervous. 

 

“I guess Kira just calls you whenever she needs you and we walk around outside together for a little” she shrugged.

 

“So this is a publicity stunt?” Stiles was familiar with the term, knew that most of the relationships in Hollywood were some variation of them, he’d written about more than one pretending that it was real. 

 

Lydia nodded mutely, still trying to come to terms with the idea of it.

 

“I guess that maybe we could be friends” Stiles said, still talking to his hands, “and mock this thing together”.

 

Lydia smiled, her nervousness was starting to subside. “I’d like that” she said.

 

Stiles looked up at her, returned her smile. 

 

“Maybe we should switch numbers” Lydia shrugged, “in case we need to yell about what’s happening”.

 

Stiles laughed, “I guess that’s one reason”. He pulled his phone out and groaned when he saw the name of the screen.

 

“What’s wrong?”.

 

“It’s my best friend” Stiles muttered, “I don’t know how I’m going to keep this from him. He’s going to lose his shit when press comes out”.

 

“Are you going to tell him it’s fake?” she asked.

 

Stiles shook his head. “Probably best we keep the number of people that know it an absolute minimum”.

 

“I don’t pity you”. 

 

Stiles laughed again and handed his phone to her. 

 

Lydia passed him her phone and brought up a new contact. “Do you want me to use a fake name?” she looked up at him.

 

“Oh” Stiles muttered, “I hadn’t thought of that”.

 

“Should be fine?”.

 

“Yeah”.

 

Lydia used the lipstick emoji as her last name just in case. “All done” she smiled, gave Stiles back his phone. He’d use puppy emoji as his and she laughed.

 

“Friends” Stiles smiled, offering her his hand. She could tell that he was feeling a lot more comfortable, he could actually look at her now. 

 

“Friends” she smiled. They shook on it.

 

The was a knock on the door and Allison entered. “Good to see you two are at least getting along” she smiled. “I’ve introduced myself haven’t I?” she looked at Stiles.    
  


“Allison. Stylist and best friend” Stiles recalled. 

 

Allison nodded, “Good memory”. 

 

Stiles shrugged, “So you’re in on this as well?”.

 

“Yes” she leaned against the large desk. “Also you’re not allowed to write your own articles about your fake relationship”.

 

“I assumed as much” he smirked. 

 

“So what happens now?” Lydia asked, her nerves returning as two pairs of eyes locked onto her. 

 

“Well” Allison started, her brows knitting together, “I don’t really know. I haven’t really seen Kira all that much, and you know how she goes into full on professional mode when she’s here”.

 

“There’s a time where she’s not like that?” Stiles asked.

 

“Sometimes she’s in friend-Kira mode which I prefer a lot more” Allison explained. 

 

“Guess I’ve only met her in a professional context”.

 

“Yeah, thanks for doing this whole thing by the way”.

 

Stiles laughed. “It’s not the worst thing in the world” he looked over at Lydia out of the corner of his eye.

 

“I mean” Allison shrugged, “she made a point that everything would be dealt with. So I’m assuming we just wait until everyone here’s ready and then you guys go outside and walk around a bit until you’re seen together”.

 

Lydia nodded, gazed over at Stiles out of the corner of her eye. Part of her was surprised that he was agreeing to this at all. But, God she was grateful. She’d never really thought she would be comfortable with this idea at all, but Stiles was making it all seem easy. The more time she spent in his presence, the calmer she was becoming. And she knew that this was something that she could do, and even get a good friend out of. 

 

……….

 

Stiles could barely breathe. Driving could be a  _ little  _ difficult when you couldn’t breathe properly, but somehow Stiles was managing. His mind was thinking a million things all at once and it was a little confusing so he tried to distance himself and focus on driving. Crashing the jeep and accidently dying wouldn’t help this situation at all. And he couldn’t bare to think of what would happen to Lydia, whoever she would end up with … wouldn’t be him. He didn’t want her going through this with a stranger. Yes, she barely knew him at all, but he trusted himself a lot more than most people in the industry, and somehow he felt that she she did too. 

 

He paused before entering his apartment. Everything was slowly catching up to him and Stiles realised that he was going to have to keep this a secret from his best friend, from his coworkers, from his family. From everyone. Stiles took a deep breath and turned the key in the lock. He could hear Scott moving around in the kitchen and for the first time in a few week Star Wars wasn’t playing on the TV. Stiles took the opportunity to jump for the remote. 

 

“I’m watching that!” Scott called. 

 

“Not anymore!”.

 

Scott came out of the kitchen, a large bowl of popcorn in his hands. He placed it down on the coffee table and sat next to Stiles.

 

“You ok?” he asked.

 

“Fine” Stiles replied, channel surfing. 

 

“You’re home early” he continued.

 

“Finished the latest article, had nothing to do”.

 

Stiles found a channel that was decent enough and turned to see Scott squinting at him. “What?”.

 

“You’re hiding something from me” Scott replied.

 

“Why would I do that?” Stiles laughed.

 

“Are you seeing someone?”.

 

_ Goddamn he was good.  _ “Scott, if I was seeing someone, you would know”. 

 

“Because you would text me all throughout the date so you knew what to say” Scott smirked.

“Exactly”.

 

Scott shrugged, reached for the popcorn. “Cartoons again?” he asked, eyes turning to the TV.

 

“What else is there?” Stiles smirked.

 

Scott opened his mouth to speak but didn’t have time to say anything before Stiles interjected, “not Star Wars”. 

 

“Maybe I’ll find another cinematic masterpiece of a series to watch”.

 

“As long as it’s decent” Stiles laughed.

 

……….

 

Lydia didn’t say anything on the drive back to her apartment. The silence in the car wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward, it just meant that everyone was caught up in their own thoughts. The only sounds were coming from the outside. They were comforting and familiar and Lydia was grateful that she was in a city where she felt so at home. Kira had more details to figure out with the team so she only returned to her apartment with Allison. They were hardly inside the door before Allison made her way to Lydia’s wardrobe.

 

“Before you ask I’m looking for date worthy outfits, regardless if they’re fake or not you need to look as if it’s real” Allison called.

 

Lydia laughed and followed her.

 

“So what look are we going for? Middle school chic? First real boyfriend glam? College sweetheart …” Lydia trailed off.

 

Allison looked over at her apologetically. “How about we start with the forever classic ‘this is the real Lydia’ look?” she asked. 

 

Lydia smiled faintly. “I’m not really sure who that is anymore” she said.

 

Allison hugged Lydia, tried to comfort her. “Shopping trip?” she asked. “We could buy a whole new wardrobe, get you clothes that really resonate with you?”.

 

“I’d like that” Lydia muttered. “We have half the day left, more than enough time” Allison reached for her car keys. “Let’s go”.

 

……….

 

“We haven’t done this in a while” Lydia commented as she sat in the passenger seat of Allison’s car. Everything was changing around her, but her friendship with Allison was constant and she was so grateful for that.

 

“Makes it even more special” Allison smiled. 

 

“So where should we head first, Miss. Argent?” Lydia smirked.

 

“I don’t know know Miss. Martin, where ever strikes your fancy”.

 

Lydia laughed. She felt like they were in high school again. Just screwing around at the mall, like they did before the fame started to consume her life. It felt like  _ home _ .

 

……….

 

Stiles stared at the phone on his desk. He should have been working on his next article, some filler piece for the site because it was a slow news day, but instead he was zoned out. He probably shouldn’t text Lydia, probably should use her number only for emergencies. Sure they’d shook on considering each other friends but were they  _ actually  _ friends, or was it solely for the purpose of the fake dating? Which he hadn’t heard anything else about anyway. He had both Kira and Allison’s number’s saved into his phone, but he hadn’t heard anything from either of them. All he could think was Scott would know the answer to this. Scott would know if it was appropriate to actually text Lydia, or ask someone if there was anything new. Scott would know when the appropriate time to do that was. But Stiles couldn’t tell Scott anything, and so he was completely blind in this situation and had  _ no idea what he was doing _ . 

 

“You know Stiles, last time I walked past your desk you were staring at your phone. So either you’ve been staring at your phone this whole time or this is all just a big coincidence”. Stiles looked up to see Isaac smirking at him. His curly hair was a mess and his tired eyes indicated that he’d been up all night working on his column that he never seems to finish until the last minute. 

 

“I’m just having a weird day” Stiles replied.  _ A weird week,  _ he thought.

 

“Didn’t sleep well?” Isaac asked. Even when he was sleep deprived and could probably pass out at any second, Isaac always managed to be one of the kindest and most approachable guys in the office. 

 

“Guess not” Stiles muttered, “You look like you didn’t sleep at all”.

 

“Yeah” Isaac sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “Needed time to finish the the -”.

 

“Column?” Stiles interjected. “Why am I not surprised?” he smirked.

 

“Hey, my column is the most boring piece of shit on this website and you know it” Isaac stopped in his tracks and gazed around him, suddenly aware that there were other people in the office and that he was at work and that he couldn’t complain about his job while he was physically  _ at  _ his job. 

 

Stiles laughed, “You just gotta push through it, soon Finstock will give you something you actually enjoy writing. You just gotta do the time first”.

 

“Maybe I’m actually the shittiest writer in the office and this is my punishment” Isaac muttered.

 

“I doubt that”.

 

“Anyways, I gotta get back to work, I guess. You up for some Mexican later?”.

 

“Do you ever eat anything else?” Stiles asked.

 

“Sometimes I have pizza” Isaac shrugged.

 

As Isaac left Stiles realised that there was nothing distracting him again. He could either stare at his phone and wish with all his might for it to buzz. Or he could work on this latest article and actually be a productive human being. Stiles sighed and started to type.

 

……….

 

A few hours later, Stiles was wrapping up the article. The day had dragged on but it was finally coming to an end, most of his co-workers were slowly making their way home. Stiles leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. He was mostly proud of the article, it could use a little more work but it was pretty much done. He was impressed at how much he’d been able to pull together in the dwindling hours of his shift. The sky outside was turning a deep orange and Stiles heard Isaac call out a farewell to him. He told him he’d see him tomorrow, that they could get food some other time. When he wasn’t this distracted, though he wasn’t sure when that would be. His phone buzzed and startled him. He was expecting it to be Scott telling him that he left some Chinese in the fridge and was surprised to see Kira’s name instead. He unlocked his phone quickly.

 

_ “New information. Let me know when you finish your shift”  _ the text read. His phone buzzed again. Stiles was once again shocked when he saw Lydia’s name of the screen this time.

 

_ “Did you hear about the new info?”  _ it read.

 

_ “I heard there was new info”  _ he typed back. 

 

Stiles grabbed his jacket and made for the door as quickly as he could, already digging in his pocket for the keys to the jeep. He was grateful that Scott was working the night shift tonight. It meant that he didn’t have to hide the fact that he was texting someone else when the only person Stiles ever texted was Scott and occasionally Isaac. It would have made Scott suspicious of something that Stiles would never be able to explain to him. At least, not yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll see you all next week! :)


	5. Gasoline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short little update but I gotta keep up that scheduling momentum. I hope you all like it regardless!  
> Chapter song: Gasoline by Halsey

_ “You’re part of a machine, you are not a human being” _

 

Lydia and Allison had spent the majority of the day going through the clothes they’d bought the day before. They were slowly sorting their way through Lydia’s wardrobe and categorising based on what clothes the real Lydia would wear and what the fake Lydia wore. Lydia was trying her best to bring herself into a new era. A lot of her clothes had memories attached to them, and she immediately knew that anything that reminded her of Jackson had to go. They were just about done when Lydia felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She read the text from Kira and then handed the phone to Allison for her to read.

 

_ “New info in terms of the what’s happening with the fake-dating. Will update soon”  _ it read. 

 

“I guess that’s a step in the right direction” Allison handed Lydia’s phone back.

 

Lydia stared down at her phone. She pulled up a new text and scanned her contacts for the right number. She gazed down at Stiles’ name, her fingers freezing momentarily. 

 

_ “Did you hear about the new info?”  _ she typed and sent it before she had time to change her mind.

 

“I guess now we just wait” Lydia replied.

 

“Kira can take her time with these things so I wouldn’t bet on hearing anything else for a while”.

 

Lydia’s phone buzzed again. 

 

_ “I heard that there was new info” she read.  _

 

“I’m assuming that’s not Kira” Allison smirked.

 

“Shh, I’m thinking” Lydia muttered. She could feel her heart rate increasing, somehow Stiles felt more real than he had earlier. Even if it was just a text. 

 

Allison laughed, continued going through the clothes. 

 

“What do I do?” Lydia asked, still gazing at her phone.

 

“What did he say?”.

 

“Kira’s contacted him but he doesn’t know anything more than we do”.

 

“Sounds like we’re all playing the waiting game” Allison replied. 

 

_ “If you hear anything else, please let me know”  _ Lydia sent.

 

Lydia slid her phone back into her pocket, turning her attention back to the mass amount of clothes that she was slowly realising she didn’t need most of. “I want to donate everything we decide against to charity” she said.

 

“I think that’s a great idea” Allison replied, smiling. 

 

“I just hope the media doesn’t make a big thing out of it”.

 

“It wouldn’t be bad press” Allison shrugged, “but I guess you should keep it from Kira anyway”.

 

“So what do we do until we hear from her?”.

 

“Either finish going through these or watch a movie?”.

 

Lydia nodded. “We’re almost done anyway”.

 

……….

 

Stiles turned the key into the lock and was almost surprised at the empty apartment. He forgot how quiet it could be when Scott wasn’t around. But the two million thoughts in his head helped with that. Stiles dumped his shoulder bag in his room and made for the couch, grabbing his phone out of his pocket as he went. 

 

_ “If you hear anything else, please let me know”  _ he read.

 

_ “Will do”  _ he replied to Lydia.

 

_ “I just got home. Explain what’s going on”  _ he sent to Kira.

 

Stiles found the TV remote and started flicking through channels as he waited for a reply. There wasn’t really anything interesting on at this time, mainly just shitty reality TV and Stiles dealt enough with that at work. He’d always been confused as to why it was so popular, maybe the majority of people were just stupid. Unless it was a form of escapism, which he could understand. His phone buzzed again.

 

_ “Are you near a computer with a webcam?”. _

 

Stiles looked around him, his laptop was in his room but Scott’s would be around here somewhere. He located it and laughed when Scott’s password was still the same as it had been in high school. He grimaced when the screen loaded.

 

“Scott, we really need to find you a partner” Stiles muttered, reaching for his phone.

 

_ “Yes. Why?”  _ he sent to Kira.

 

Stiles took a minute to quickly check his Facebook. There wasn’t much going on in the real world. Someone he went to school with had posted a photo of their lunch that day, someone else was pregnant. Stiles was grateful when his phone buzzed again.

 

_ “Do you have Skype?”  _ Lydia had sent him.

 

Stiles pulled his Skype up, quickly changing absolutely everything to make it as normal as possible. He and Scott would occasionally go through each other’s profiles and fuck around a bit then see how long it would take them to notice. 

 

_ “Yeah, why?”  _ he replied to Lydia.

 

In that same moment he received a text from Kira that said  _ “I hope you have Skype”. _

 

_ “I know why”  _ he typed, and sent Lydia his Skype name. A minute later he had a friend request from “betterthanyouxo” and laughed because that was so  _ Lydia _ . Within another minute he was at the receiving end of a call he didn’t have to think twice about answering. Just seeing her made his day so much brighter, somehow she’d found the most perfect lighting and she was even more stunning that he remembered. Even though he’d seen her the day before.

 

“Hi” she smiled at him. 

 

His heart stuttered. “Hi”.

 

“Hi Stiles!” the screen moved back, revealing Allison at Lydia’s side. He’d expected nothing less.

 

“Hi Allison” he laughed.

 

“Good day at the office?” she smirked.

 

“Same as usual” he shrugged.

 

“Damn, I was hoping to hear some hot new gossip”.

 

“If I told you anything that wasn’t released I’d lose my job” he reminded.

 

“Well you do know a thing or two about keeping secrets don’t you?”.

 

They all laughed until another call started coming through.

 

“It’s Kira” Lydia said simply.

 

“Time to finally learn what’s going” Allison muttered.

 

Another screen popped up, first black and then Kira’s face appeared. She waved, smiling.

 

“I have real details to give you!”.

 

“Tell us!”.

 

“Ok, hang on a sec”.

 

“You looking for your clipboard?” Stiles smirked.

 

“Mock the clipboard and you’re dead, Stilinski” she replied.

 

He held his hands up in an ‘I surrender’ gesture while trying not to focus on how Lydia was trying to hide a laugh. 

 

“So” Kira started, “Lydia you actually have a choice for how we go about this”.

 

“Well isn’t this the gift that keeps on giving?” Lydia grinned.

 

Kira ignored the comment, eyes still on the clipboard in front of her. “We could either have someone leak a comment to the press that you’re seeing someone. Or we could do this really gradual, have the two of you be seen together while denying that there’s anything going on and then leak something that indicates the ‘truth’”.

 

“Stiles?” Lydia asked. “Any preference?”.

 

“I’ll just follow your lead, it’s your love life and everything” he replied. 

 

“Professional opinion?” Allison questioned.

 

“Professionally speaking, I think it would be best to drag this out as long as possible. Gives endless ‘will they won’t they’ vibes to your fan base, keeps the media on their toes and means they get a lot more articles out of it. More articles equals more clicks for the the site”. It was something that the office and other sites and magazines loved, being able to make as many articles on one topic and compete which one has the most detail or evidence. Paparazzi would camp outside houses for days waiting for the first snaps of involved individuals. And it gave the fans time to make as many theories as they could before finally being shut down by the ‘truth’.

“How long is as long as possible?”.

 

“I mean, it depends on how long you want this to come across as being. It could be anything from a few weeks to a few months”.

 

“Hmm” Kira hummed. “We could have someone make a fan account and leak a few things that makes it seem longer?”.

 

“No, the fans will tear that shit apart” Allison realised. “You know how they get, little sleuths that they are”.

 

“I guess, if we go in the other direction and pretend the relationship has been going on for a few weeks or something, that could work?” Lydia twirled her hair absently.

 

“That really depends on if you want me to seem like a rebound or not” Stiles shrugged.

 

“Oh” Lydia breathed, her eyes leaving the screen and looking down at her hands in her lap. Her hair had fallen from behind her ear, obstructing some of her face and Stiles hoped she wasn’t going to start crying. He wouldn’t be able to take that. 

 

“I’m sorry” he muttered. He hated how sad she looked, wanted to apologise a thousand times over. Yes, this would be hard for both of them, but it would be especially hard for Lydia. 

 

“I’ve got an idea” Allison interjected, her arm sliding around Lydia in a comforting gesture. “I think there’s one of those award shows coming up. How about we say you two are friends, rumours will ensue regardless. Maybe you could start getting closer and closer in the lead up, and then Stiles if you end up being Lydia’s date on the night the dating would be lowkey confirmed and everything”.

 

Kira was nodding thoughtfully, “That’s actually not something I’ve thought of”.

 

A thought suddenly popped in his mind. “Can I build on that idea?” he asked.

 

“Anything is possible at this point” Kira replied.

 

“We could have something leaked about a week before the award show. Then neither confirm nor deny it”.

 

“And your presence could speak for itself. Perfect” Allison beamed. 

 

Stiles was trying to hid that he was focusing on the fact that Lydia hadn’t said anything for a few minutes. Or that she wasn’t looking at the camera. Or that she looked the saddest he’d ever seen her. His heart felt heavy. He could see that Allison had her arm around her but that didn’t seem to be helping in any way. He wasn’t sure if he needed to try and wrap this up for her sake. 

 

“I guess we could go with that idea for now. If anything else comes to mind then someone let me know, ok?” Kira said, her eyes were focused on one spot, which Stiles knew was Lydia. “Stiles you have my number don’t you?”.

 

“I do” he responded. 

 

“I’ll try and work out the finer details then. I’ll talk to you guys later” Kira waved and then her screen turned to black. Lydia remained unmoved from her current position. 

 

“I’ll get you some water” Allison muttered, then disappeared off screen. 

 

Stiles felt cold. All he really wanted to do was hug Lydia and make sure that she was ok, but there wasn’t much he could do from here.

 

“Stiles” she said in a quiet voice.

 

“Yeah”.

 

“Jackson will be at the award show” her voice was barely above a whisper.

 

“I’ll stay next to you” he said. “If I see him I’ll get you on the other side of the room”.

 

She nodded silently, finally pushing her hair behind her ear. She wasn’t crying but he was sure that she would be soon, “Thank you”.

 

“If anything happens, I’ll handle it”.

 

She nodded again. Allison returned with a glass of water and handed it to Lydia. 

 

“You’re pretty good at this” she said to him.

 

Stiles shrugged, unable to take his eyes off Lydia.

 

“I think we should call it a day for now, and come back to it later” she continued.

 

Stiles nodded. “I agree”.

 

“Talk soon” Allison said, and then Stiles’ entire screen was black. 

 

Stiles closed the window. He was aware that he was still staring at his screen but he wasn’t completely registering it. He was sure that Allison was capable of helping Lydia. You could tell that they’d been friends for a long time, comforting each other wouldn’t have been anything new. He was barely aware that he had reached for his phone. He was barely aware that he was typing a message. He was barely aware that he’d sent it. 

 

_ “Please take care of her”  _ he’d sent to Allison. 

 

Stiles felt sick. So he reached for the TV remote, turned on some random channel and made his way to the kitchen. There wasn’t really ever much food in the apartment. Between Scott working crazy hours and Stiles coming home late most days they never really had much time to get groceries, but he was glad when he found some comfort food in the fridge. Even if he wasn’t the one that needed comforting he was hoping it would wake him up enough to at least seem normal if Scott was to come home at any point. Yes, keeping this entire thing from him would be hard, but he couldn’t lose focus. At least, he was trying not to.

 

……….

 

Lydia felt sick to her core. It wasn’t Stiles’ fault. It could never be his fault. The more this sunk in the more she realised how hard it would be for her. Yes, she was an actress and yes she was a good one but when something was this close to home, this personal for her … she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to pull it off. There was a drive in her to become her real self again, but when everything around her was fake how was she supposed to discover what that meant? She didn’t know who she was. She didn’t know if she would ever figure that out. She wished that she could be honest with everyone, with her fans and with herself. She was becoming overwhelmed with all that was expected of her. She didn’t feel real. She didn’t think anyone would understand that. She couldn’t even find it within herself to talk to Allison about it. And that’s what was really destroying her. If she couldn’t talk to anyone about all this then how was she supposed to work it all out. She didn’t want to start falling apart at the seams. She wanted to become someone that she could be proud of, that her friends, family and fans could be proud of but that idea was so far out of her reach. 

 

Lydia wasn’t sure if this was worth it. She didn’t know what the gain was at this point. So what if she looked like she was over Jackson? Wasn’t she human? Didn’t she have a right to grieve over a relationship that had been so important to her? Wasn’t she allowed to show that? Maybe her team would make her come across as a resilient individual that didn’t feel pain, but that’s not what she was. That was never what she had been and even as they tried to force her into that mould she would never be able to fit. 

 

She didn’t want to tarnish Stiles in this either. He had a real career ahead of him. He was a  _ great  _ writer. He didn’t need his name connected to hers to get him where he was going. He was already halfway there. He had nothing to gain from this. Seemingly be in a relationship with a high profile celebrity for a few months, break up when her team decided that he wasn’t needed anymore and then be accused of using her for her fame for the rest of his career. She didn’t know if Stiles knew that would be the outcome. She didn’t know if Stiles would realise it and back out tomorrow. She didn’t want to think about what idiot her team would force her with if he did. Yes, she was worried about what would happen as the two of them went through this, knew that there wasn’t a seemingly positive end at this point. But she was terrified of the idea of doing it  _ without  _ Stiles. 

 

After Lydia had convinced Allison to go home she curled into a ball on her bed. The only thing she knew was that she didn’t feel real. And if she suddenly woke up as her fourteen year old self, she would know that acting wasn’t an option for her. That this should have never happened. Her phone buzzed.

 

_ “If you ever need anything let me know at any time”  _ she read the text from Stiles.

  
“I need you now” she whispered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll see you all next time!


	6. Hollow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Low key almost forgot to post this because I'm flogged with assignments right now but here's the next chapter. You've all been so positive so far which is really nice. Thank you all so much :)
> 
> Shoutout to Corinne for helping me name this chapter and just genuinely being a massive babe like wow.  
> Chapter song: Hollow by Tori Kelly

_ “Cause I’m paper thin/And you make me whole again” _

 

Stiles was pacing. Scott never usually worked on Saturday’s but somehow he was unlucky this week. Which meant Stiles was the lucky one and he could pace freely around his apartment without fear of judgement or Scott demanding some kind of answer to why the fuck Stiles was pacing when he  _ never did that _ . He was restless and waiting for Kira to respond to his texts so he knew what was going on that day. Or if anything was going on. Obviously he had to make himself constantly available, otherwise he would have grabbed his camera and would be in a park somewhere right now taking a picture of some butterfly for his Instagram account that he barely had time to use. And yet here he was at 9am on a Saturday morning, pacing around his goddamn apartment. His phone buzzed. The only thing written in the message was an address and a time. Stiles was going to be late. 

 

………

 

Stiles parked a few blocks away from the apartment building. Kira had sent him another text telling him that there was a back entrance that he could probably sneak in if he was lucky. He had an abundance of hoodies that he now had a reason to wear. Rolling up the sleeves and placing the hood up Stiles made it passed the few Paparazzi that were around and into the apartment building without suspicion. Stiles found the door with the glossy number 26 on it and knocked, placing his hood back down. 

 

“Wow, Stiles, don’t you clean up nice” Allison smirked. 

 

“If you wanted nice then you should have said so. I would have ditched the jeans for some sweatpants” he replied.

 

Allison laughed, pulled the door open enough to let him in. She checked the hallway before closing it again. Lydia was sitting on the couch, she looked up when he entered and smiled. Stiles thought that she looked like she was trying to feign happiness, there was something playing behind her eyes. He waved and smiled back at her regardless. 

 

“Welcome to my humble abode” she said. 

 

He glanced around quickly, not knowing if being here counted as prying, “It’s nice”.

 

“Make yourself comfortable” Allison smiled. “We’re just enjoying the fact that Kira’s late”.

 

“Thinking up all the ways you can mock her for it?”.

 

“All I’ll say is that the fact that you arrived first is a bonus” She put her phone to her ear. “Straight to voicemail” she said.

“At least that means she’s driving” Lydia shrugged.

 

“Driving or not I can’t wait to hear what excuse she comes up with” Allison looked over at him and he realised he was still kind of standing in the doorway. “Stiles, you know that you can sit down right?”.

 

Stiles looked around quickly. He sat next to Lydia, dumping his bag on the floor next to him, and ignored the fact that Allison was smirking as she sat in an armchair next to them.

 

“Good choice. I was wondering if you were going to steal my armchair out from under me”.

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it” he said.

 

“So how many shoulder bags do your own?” Allison tapped his bag with her foot.

 

“Two”.

 

“One for business and one to start the party. I like the vibe”.

 

Stiles rolled his eyes, turning his attention instead to Lydia. She was sitting with her hands in her lap. Whether she was intentionally trying to take up as little space as possible or not was uncertain.

 

“Are you feeling ok?” he asked her.

 

She looked up at him, her eyes giving him all the answers she needed before she managed to mask them and smile at him, “I’m fine”.

 

Lydia was a great actress. Just not in this context.

 

“I have an idea” Allison announced, jumping up and sliding between them on the couch, “Selfie time”.

 

Lydia laughed, “It’s clever”.

 

“Kira’s going to love this almost as much as instagram will” Allison held up her phone. “Stiles if you don’t move closer to me you’re not going to be in the shot. This isn’t a middle school dance so you don’t have to keep me at arm’s length. Don’t be a stranger”.

 

Stiles laughed and slid and close as he could to Allison. “Better?”.

 

“You know, Lydia, your couch has some damn good lighting. Everybody smile!”.

 

……….

 

“The traffic in this city is the worst thing I’ve ever encountered in my entire life” Kira was saying as she burst into the apartment. Shaking her umbrella dry as she closed the door. 

 

“Watch the carpet!” Allison called. “Glad you could finally enjoy the party” she added.

 

“What are you guys up to?” Kira asked, sliding out of her coat.

 

“Just livening up the instathreds” Allison shrugged. 

 

“We’re kind of doing your job for you” Stiles added.

 

“Emojis instead of a caption is working wonders” Lydia smiled.

 

Kira’s eyes widened. “What did you do?”.

 

Allison tossed her phone to Kira, smiling something wicked. “Well when you were didn’t show up on time we had to take matters into our own hands” she teased.

 

Kira stared at the phone screen silently. She scrolled through the comments:

 

“YASSSS”

“QUEENS”

“Does anyone know who he is?”

“SLAY ME”

“first”

“who is he?”

“Lydia so beautiful. Please marry me”

 

she read. Kira moved a hand to her forehead, she could feel a headache coming on. “This could have gone terribly wrong” she said.

 

“But it didn’t?” Allison beamed, standing up and heading towards the kitchen.

 

“Fortunately” Kira sighed. 

 

“Stiles” Lydia whispered, patting Allison’s vacated spot next to her, “I guess we should start the rumor mill”.

 

“Might as well” he shrugged, sliding over. 

 

“You can put your arm around me. And smile”.

Stiles did, tried to play off the fact that his hand was tingling with electricity as he smiled at the camera. 

 

“Perfect” Lydia smiled. Stiles was so happy that it was genuine.  “Just a few more, just in case”.

 

Allison returned from the kitchen, placed four glasses of water on the coffee table and a bowl of chips. “What are you captioning it?” she asked as Stiles slid back again allowing her to take her place next to Lydia.

 

_ “What a beautiful specimen #fave #friends”  _ Lydia typed, posted it before Kira could stop her.

 

“Perfect” Allison beamed. “See Kira, we didn’t even need you this time”.

 

“Well I’m glad it at least worked out” she replied, taking a glass and sitting in the armchair. 

 

……….

 

A few hours and a few hundred ridiculous photos - most of them would never see the light of a social media post - later their party of four was slowly dwindling. Kira had been pulled away, not by a meeting but a lunch date with her mother, which no one could fault her for. Lydia and Allison were sort of grateful to see her doing something so human. She usually just worked all the time. In a surprise twist Allison actually had to go to a meeting. And then there were two.

 

Stiles had somehow found his way to the armchair throughout his time in Lydia’s apartment. Lydia was still on the couch. She’d returned to staring at her hands in her lap and not looking at him. The apartment felt very quiet without Allison and Kira present. Stiles reached for his bag, was about to grab his camera out of it when Lydia spoke.

 

“Stiles” she said, snapping his attention to her even if she wasn’t looking at him, “If it’s ok I don’t really want you to leave yet”.

 

“Of course” Stiles muttered, gently kicked his bag a little further away from him. “Sorry I was going to get my camera”.

 

Lydia perked up at that, raising her head to look at him. “You’re a photographer?” she asked.

 

“Yeah. When I can find time to be, which isn’t often” he replied, rubbed the back of his neck nervously. He didn’t really talk to people about his photography. The only person that really knew about it was Scott. He didn’t really deem it as an important fact about him anyway.

 

“Do you have anything that I could look at?”.

 

“Uh” Stiles muttered, reached in his pocket for his phone and went and sat next to her on the couch. “Here”. He pulled up his instagram and handed her his phone, watching as she scrolled through the photos, smiling more and more as she did. 

 

“You’re as good at photography as you are at writing” Lydia smiled, looking up at Stiles and actually making proper eye contact with him for the first time that day.

 

“So not very good then?” he smirked.

 

Lydia laughed and turned away. Her hair slid out from behind her ear and blocked her face from Stiles’ view momentarily. When she looked up again her face was the definition of the word ‘sad’. “Stiles” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “Is it ok if I talk to you about … everything?”. 

 

“When I told you that if there was anything you needed then you could let me know, I meant it” he said simply. “You can talk to me”.

 

“I just need to talk and for some reason I can’t bring myself to talk to Allison” she explained. “Everytime I consider it I can only think of talking to you”.

 

Stiles was more than a little surprised at that. He wasn’t sure why Lydia would be thinking about him at all, especially not in such a personal context, but part of him was incredibly grateful that she did. “Is it this whole fake dating thing or is it bigger than that?” he asked.

 

Lydia shook her head slightly, seemingly trying to shake her thoughts into place. “It’s more than that” she replied.

 

“I’ve got all day”.

 

“You don’t have to stay here” she looked up again.

 

“I would prefer to if it means that you’ll be feeling better”.

 

Lydia nodded silently. Took a few minutes to figure out what exactly it was that she was telling him. The words were starting to jumble in her head as all the thoughts that were bothering her demanded attention.

 

Stiles waited patiently for Lydia to speak. He was trying to build up the courage to put his arm around her in the comforting way he’d seen Allison achieve. Without it being awkward and uncomfortable for both of them. 

 

“I don’t feel real” Lydia said finally, breaking the silence that formed around them. She didn’t look up at Stiles when she said it, but finally admitting to it was somehow helping. It helped even more when Stiles put his arm around her. For some reason the small gesture made her feel safe. As if all of her worries couldn’t bother her now, she only had to release them.

 

“What do you mean?” he asked.

 

Lydia took a deep breath. She knew that the words would just spill out of her once she let them. All of her troubles and worries would be forced out into the air between her and Stiles. She didn’t want to make them his problems as well, but she just really needed to talk about it. And she couldn’t imagine talking to anyone but Stiles. Her hands shook a little, she could feel Stiles’ arm around her, anchoring her to the present moment, his thumb was creating soothing circles against her shoulder. “Ever since Jackson and I broke up everything has just been a mess” she started. “We were together for six years and he’s walking around like it’s nothing, like it never happened. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve been trying to figure it out but nothing’s really been sticking. Everything around me is fake. The Lydia that everyone else sees is fake. I don’t think my team even knows that I am a person outside of what they created for me. I don’t even know if Allison can recognise me anymore. I know that ending everything will Jackson was the best thing that could have happened. And I really wanted some time to find myself and stand on my own feet again but then they’ve fabricated something else around me. It’s like I can’t even feel sad. I can’t show that I feel sad about it even though it was such a big part of my life. I can’t even be human and show I feel things and that I regret things and that I’m angry at him. He’s torn me apart in ways I didn’t even know were possible until now. And now everything around me is so fake. I’m not even sure what’s real anymore. The only thing that seems to be real is you, Stiles”. 

 

Lydia paused for a moment, tried to will back the tears that were already starting to spill from her eyes. “I’m sorry, it just feels like I have no one to talk to. I know that I have Allison and Kira but in some ways I feel like they’re also so connected to this as well. I guess because they’re a part of my team, Kira especially. I don’t want to have to hide anymore. I just want to be able to be honest with myself and everyone else”. Stiles pulled her into his chest and she wrapped her arms around his waist in retaliation, gripping onto him for dear life. 

 

“Lydia, you’re real. I promise you” Stiles whispered.

 

“Stiles, I don’t know if I can do this. I’m sorry they forced you into this”.

 

“They didn’t force me, I wanted to”.

 

Lydia pulled away enough so that she was able to look at him. “Are you sure?” she asked.

 

Stiles nodded. He was certain. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you through this”.

 

“You have nothing to gain from this”.

 

“And I have nothing to lose either”.

 

It was quiet for a moment as the two of them looked at each other. Lydia would be able to find it in herself to believe in this if Stiles did. She might not feel entirely real but he was, and he could pull her back in whenever she needed the reassurance. She was grateful again that, as misguided as her team was to what she needed, they’d picked Stiles instead of literally any other guy in the industry to go on this journey with her. She wouldn’t have been able to deal with working with someone that she hated in such a way, but Stiles was so different. She knew that her fans would love Stiles, he was the perfect choice for this. She felt safe and comfortable with him in a way that she hadn’t felt around anyone in years. And she knew that when he was around she would be able to pull through and handle this the way her team desired her to. And maybe she could make everyone proud of her along the way. 

 

“Stiles” she half-whispered, breaking the silence within her apartement.

 

“Yeah?” he replied, wished that he could reassure her enough for it to really matter and wipe her tears away. He hated that her team had made her do this as much as she hated the fact it she had to, but he knew that everything would be ok eventually. Whatever the outcome of this was. 

 

“We can do this” she said, “The two of us together”.

 

Stiles nodded. “Of course we can”.

 

“I feel a bit better” she muttered, wiping her hand over her face to try and get rid of as many tears as she could.

 

Stiles smiled faintly, hoping that this would become easier somehow. That Lydia could feel like herself again, regardless of everything around her. If he could help her achieve that in any way, he wanted to. Desperately. The two of them stayed like that for a long time, talking everything through, and soon the sky outside the windows of Lydia’s apartment was changing from blue to pink to orange to black. The stars started to make their appearance. Stiles looked at the watch on his wrist, surprised at how quickly the day had passed. 

 

“If you have to go that’s ok?” Lydia smiled. She felt a lot better than she had this morning. Talking to Stiles and just being with him had made her feel even the slightest bit more real than she had seemed before. 

 

“Talk soon, though?” Stiles asked, picking his bag and tossing it over his shoulder. 

 

“You know Kira, we’ll be pulled into something else before you can even blink” she laughed. 

 

Stiles shrugged, “I wonder what it’s like being her”.

 

“Stressful most likely”.

 

Stiles nodded in agreement before heading to the door, Lydia followed and opened it. Stiles leaned in and hugged her before he left. He managed to sneak out without being seen again and he thanked whoever it was that decided this apartment building needed a sort of secret back entrance. On the drive home he felt on top of the world. For some reason there were blue skies ahead of him. Sure, there was going to be a lot of bullshit to pull through but he had faith that they would all make to the other side. Wherever that was. Stiles was completely content as he made it back to his empty apartment. His brain sort of registered that the silence must have meant that Scott was working a double that day. Stiles used to know Scott’s work schedule off by heart but then he developed a lot of other things to focus on. Lydia was steadily becoming one of them. Stiles’ train of thought was shattered when his phone buzzed in his pocket, Scott was probably on a break or about to clock off. He probably just wanted to know if Stiles had left him anything in the fridge and he felt a little guilty when he realised he hadn’t. But this time the text was about something completely different. Stiles had forgotten that Scott didn’t know that he had seen Lydia more than once since the interview. 

 

**_“DUDE WHAT THE HELL!!!!”._ **

 

_ Fuck _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Until next time, my friends!


	7. Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Jess, why are you updating this so early?" you ask.  
> "Because I have no self-control" I answer.  
> Here's the new chapter, friends. I'm not sure if I would consider it fluffy but we're getting there. I hope you all like it!  
> Chapter song: Gold by Owl City.

_ “I don’t need the stars in the night/I’ve found my treasure/All I need is you by my side/So shine forever” _

 

Scott had Sunday off which meant that Stiles wouldn’t be able to avoid him. He’d be in the apartment, most likely the whole day. And unless Stiles was pulled away by Kira for some reason he would be most likely be in the apartment as well. He knew that Scott would demand answers from him. He’d never kept anything from Scott before, they’d told eachother everything since they were old enough to talk. He had no idea what to say. He couldn’t tell Scott the truth, he’d been sworn to secrecy. It was times like these where Stiles remembered that he was a terrible liar, but there was a lot riding on this, and his ability to keep this secret. So Stiles had to suck it up and just lie. To his best friend. That he couldn’t lie to. Stiles was screwed.

 

……….

  
  


“I have news!” Kira called as she entered Lydia’s apartment.

 

Lydia emerged from the kitchen, a mug of coffee held tightly in her hands. “What about?” she asked.

 

Kira smiled, “The team loved the whole selfie thing yesterday, they really like how we’re approaching this”.

 

Lydia smiled faintly, tried to pretend that she was happy about that. She had come to the conclusion overnight that she was going to continue doing this out of spite, not because she cared about her team or their image of her. She was going to try and feel more real and more herself with each passing day, gradually working on herself until she could prove to herself that there was something outside of everyone’s idea of her.

 

“I know that you don’t like them much but having them on your side is going to help this entire thing run smoothly”.

 

Lydia nodded. “I know” she said.

 

Kira sighed, “Lydia, you know you can talk to me right? I’m your friend”.

 

“I have nothing against you Kira. I’m just … going through some things right now and this whole thing isn’t really helping” she explained, hoping that Kira would understand. She didn’t want to have the whole ‘I don’t feel real’ talk again. She didn’t want those feelings to be brought up again when yesterday she had felt so much better after talking it through with Stiles. 

 

Kira nodded in understanding, “If there’s anything that’s going to make this easier  _ please _ let me know”.

 

“You know I will” Lydia smiled. 

 

Kira went in for a hug, happy when it was reciprocated. “I know I’ve been caught up in work stuff  a lot lately but I still care about you” she said.

 

“I know”.

 

……….

 

Stiles hadn’t really thought very far into this. If he had this wouldn’t be a problem for him. He should have thought up a story to tell Scott the second that he went into this. But he didn’t, and now he had to throw something together as quickly as he could, because he was starving and he could hear Scott in the kitchen making coffee. There was no escape.The second Stiles opened his bedroom door the apartment fell completely silent. Everything seemed to freeze and Stiles was unwilling to move or breathe because that would shatter it. 

 

“I made you a coffee” Scott called from the kitchen, breaking whatever ice had frozen them in that moment.

 

“Thanks!” Stiles replied, making for the kitchen. He did miss Scott, they both worked so much that they barely saw each other anymore. Even though they lived together they barely seemed to spend any time together. And Stiles was momentarily caught up in the reminiscing of simpler times where they would see each other at school every day and afterwards at lacrosse practice. Things were definitely easier back then, but everyone had to grow up a little. Stiles took the mug from Scott’s outstretched hand and tried to will the thoughts away. He had to focus on the present. 

 

The two boys sat on the couch, some bacon and eggs sitting on the coffee table in front of them, completely content. The morning news was playing in the background, neither of them were really focusing on it. Stiles was waiting for Scott to speak and ask about everything that he hasn’t told him. When the gossip news came and went Stiles realised that he was the one who should start this conversation.

 

“So I’ve been unintentionally keeping something from you” he started, watching as Scott perked up and waited for the rest of the story. 

 

“I was hoping it was unintentional” Scott smirked.

 

“You know I would never keep anything from you”.

 

“Especially this” Scott turned so he was facing him, settling in. “Dude when did you get it in with Lydia Martin?”.

 

Stiles laughed, rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “Look, I promise you that there’s nothing happening between us. We’re just friends”.

 

Scott nodded slowly, absorbing this new information. He sculled the rest of his coffee. “So you just hang out together?”.

 

“Yeah. We’re never really alone or anything” Stiles shrugged. Except for the one time they really were.

 

“So is she as lovely as they say?” he mocked.

 

Stiles smiled, “She’s exactly what you would hope her to be”.

 

“Ooooh” Scott beamed. “Stiles has a crush” he sing-sang. 

 

“Don’t”.

 

“Stiles has a crush. Stiles has a crush. Stiles has a crush” Scott chanted, before long he was jumping up and down on their couch singing it and laughing. Stiles couldn’t help but laugh with him. This is why Scott was his best friend. Even though he was a major dork, he still cared about Stiles immensely.

 

It wasn’t long before the two of them were practically dancing around the apartment. Just generally being the idiots they were. God, Stiles had missed this so much. His phone rang and he answered it, didn’t even check the caller ID because he was still laughing from the worst joke Scott had ever told in his life.

 

“Hello?”.

 

“Stiles?”.

 

“Lydia?” he asked slowly backing his way towards his bedroom.

 

“HI LYDIA!” Scott called, before bursting into a fit of laughter and falling back onto the couch.

 

“Scott, shut up” Stiles muttered. “What’s wrong?” he said into the phone.

 

“Oh. No, there’s nothing wrong. I was just wondering if you wanted to go out to get lunch or something but if you’re busy that’s ok”.

 

“I’m not busy, really. I have zero plans today at all” he stuttered.

 

“Great” he could practically hear her smile, “I know this really nice sushi place that I hope you’ll like”.

 

“Sounds great” he beamed.

 

“Meet you here around 12?”.

 

“I’ll be there” he answered, before hanging up.

 

Scott was smirking at him in the most wicked way possible.

 

“Don’t you dare”.

 

“Stiles has a date! Stiles had a date!”.

 

“Scott I swear -”

 

……….

 

Allison and Lydia were standing in front of Lydia’s wardrobe. They’d sorted her clothes once again into stuff that the old Lydia would wear but they had to keep just in case, and the new clothes that they’d purchased. Lydia was kind of grateful that her best friend was also her stylist because she’d never be able to deal with this without her.

 

“So, obviously we don’t want to make this look like a date” Allison was saying. “But it can’t be too casual”.

 

“Why is this such a struggle?” Lydia asked. 

 

“Perfecting an image is a very particular business”.

 

“Of course it is” Lydia crossed her arms and waited as Allison gazed over the clothes again and again.

 

“Alright I got it” Allison smiled. “It’s freezing outside so obviously you’re gonna have to be keeping warm”.

 

“Sweater and jeans?” Lydia laughed.

 

“It’s cute and casual” Allison defended. 

 

“I’m not complaining” Lydia smiled as Allison tossed her some clothes for the wardrobe. 

 

“Alight. Now we just have to wait for Stiles to get here and hope that you two don’t clash. Maybe I should have texted him” Allison ignored Lydia’s laughter as she left the room.

 

……….

 

Stiles was standing in front of the door to Lydia’s apartment and pointedly not knocking. It hadn’t really occurred to him why yet but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to. So he was just standing outside, thinking about Lydia and maybe he was slowly realising that he’d been thinking about her a lot lately. They had a job to do. This lunch date, which wasn’t even a real date, was a part of that. She probably wouldn’t even want to see him at all if it wasn’t for this fake relationship thing. Stiles tried to push his thoughts away. So he knocked. Lydia opened the door and his heart stuttered. This was definitely something he was going to have to deal with at another point because she was smiling at him and it had started to beat faster. This wasn’t something that could happen. He had to avoid  _ feelings  _ for Lydia. Especially real ones.

 

“Hi” he said, returned her smile and hoped he looked normal.

 

“Hi” she replied.

 

Stiles needed to wake the fuck up. “So sushi then” he started, “You like it a lot?”.  _ Goddamnit. _

 

Lydia laughed, “Stiles, are you ok?”.

 

He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly as jittery as some middle schooler on their first ‘date’. “Yeah” he replied. 

 

“Let me just grab my purse” Lydia said before disappearing inside for a moment.

 

Allison came to the door and gave him a once over. “Not bad” she said.

 

He shrugged silently. 

 

Allison shook her head at him, her smirk saying it all. “Remember what you’re here for, Stiles” she said.

 

“If you think I’m not trying to focus on that entirely, you’re wrong” he replied.

 

Her smile turned sympathetic, “I guess I can’t really blame you”.

 

“Blame him for what?” Lydia asked, appearing at Allison’s side again.

 

“Stiles isn’t really the biggest fan of sushi in this doorway” Allison responded. She was a natural at this. Stiles felt kind of sick. 

 

“Oh, we can go somewhere else?”.

 

“No, it’s ok” Stiles tried to smile. “I just haven’t had too much of it. Scott shared his with me once and I haven’t been able to eat any since” he shrugged.

 

“Anyways, you two kids have fun” Allison nudged Lydia towards the door and Stiles. “I’m just going to be here. In this apartment that isn’t even mine”.

 

“Allison!”.

 

“Lydia, you know I’ll just be streaming something on Netflix, relax” she laughed.

 

“I’ll see you later” Lydia smiled before exiting the apartment, Allison closed the door behind her. And then she was alone with Stiles in the hallway.

 

“She gets like this sometimes” Lydia shrugged, “Must be in the middle of a good show”.

 

“Netflix doesn’t have a shortage of those” Stiles muttered.

 

“Are you sure you’re ok? You’re acting … different” Lydia said.

 

Stiles shook his head, tried to will his thoughts into order. “Just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Scott was demanding answers after those pictures were posted” he laughed.

 

Lydia smiled at that. “What did you tell him?” she asked, started down the hallway. 

 

“Told him we were just friends. I think this is going to be hard for him the longer it goes on”.

 

“How so?”.

 

Stiles shrugged, fell into step next to her. “I just think there’s going to be a lot for his brain to absorb”.

 

“So will I ever get to meet him?” Lydia joked, nudged Stiles’ arm with her elbow. 

 

“Please no”.

  
  


……….

 

The paparazzi weren’t out in force that day in the way that she expected. Lydia knew that they would be somewhere, watching and waiting. And taking all the photos they could get. The thought of that made her just slightly anxious, even though she knew that she was out with Stiles so they would purposely get seen together she’d always hated being watched like she was. It was kind of as if she was prey and the paparazzi were wolves tracking her. She felt a little jittery and kind of wished she could return to her apartment and curl up somewhere where they couldn’t see her and she was safe. But she had a job to do. 

 

“So you’ve known each other your whole lives?” Lydia asked. She didn’t think she would have but Lydia had taken an interest in really wanting to  _ know  _ Stiles. She didn’t really know anything about him outside of what he did as a career, and there was always so much to know about a person. So Lydia had started with Scott. 

 

“Yeah. I don’t really remember not knowing Scott” Stiles shrugged, “I guess that’s what it’s like when you’re childhood friends with someone”.

 

“I guess, you’re basically brothers” Lydia smiled.

 

“Yeah. He’s more family to me than just a friend”.

 

“That’s really sweet”.

 

“It’s probably like you and Allison”.

 

Lydia laughed, “Probably”.

 

“Why is that funny?”.

 

Lydia shook her head. “I couldn’t even explain it to you” she said.

 

“So how did the two of you meet?”.

 

“That’s a looong story”.

 

“I’ve got time”.

 

Lydia looked up at him, shook her head slightly. “You sure you want to know?”.

 

“You know about Scott. It’s fair”.

 

“In high school I dated the captain of the football team and pretended to be stupid” she started. “My grades dropped so much that one of my teachers actually made me part of a tutoring program they were running”.

“And Allison was your tutor” Stiles nodded, “Impressive”.

 

“She was reading a book about archaic Latin, I slipped up and told her I knew how to speak it” Lydia shrugged, “I guess the rest is history”.

 

“You speak Latin?”.

 

Lydia laughed, “I actually have a genius IQ”.

 

Stiles shook his head, completely blown away, “You’re like an onion, so many layers”.

 

“And I make men cry” she smirked. 

 

……….

 

“Stiles, the reason I actually called you today besides the obvious of having us be seen together is because Kira updated me on some work stuff that I have to deal with” Lydia was saying. The two of them were sitting in the restaurant. Stiles was absently picking at his food and hoping that Lydia wouldn’t notice the fact that he wasn’t eating it, but she did. And honestly she didn’t really care. 

 

“New details?” Stiles perked up a little.

 

“Sort of. I worked on a film about a year ago and it’s finally passed the editing stage”. 

 

“Ah” Stiles muttered, “press time then”.

 

“Exactly. There’s a press tour” she said.

 

“What are you telling me?” Stiles asked, not liking where this was going.

 

“The press tour is going to travel, I have to travel with it” Lydia muttered, eyes staring down at her plate instead of across at Stiles, who’s face had turned surprisingly sad. 

 

“So when do you leave?” he asked.

 

“Two days”.

 

“Oh”.

 

“Stiles” Lydia looked at him, “Kira gave me two plane tickets”.

 

Stiles’ head shot up, “What?”.

Lydia laughed, “Initially we were talking about not bringing you because it would confuse everyone, but then I remembered something”.

 

His brows knitted together, confusion evident on his face, “What do you mean?”.

 

“Well Stiles, you’re a journalist” she smirked, “and what do journalists do?”.

 

“Lydia-”.

 

“They write articles” she interrupted.

 

“Lydia, I don’t have to travel to write articles”.

 

“I’m not saying this correctly” Lydia muttered, reached into her bag for something. “Here” she handed over the envelope that Kira had given her. 

  
Stiles opened it slowly, carefully pulling out the piece of paper ot contained. “We’re doing a special on you” Stiles smiled, looked up at her. “Tell Kira that she’s cleverer than I thought”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on a number of other fics right now that update more than this one does (not for this ship though, sorry guys) so it felt fair to give this one an extra update as well. 
> 
> Until next time!


	8. Like Real People Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday! Expect the unexpected. That is all.  
> Title song: Like Real People Do by Hozier.

( _“We should just kiss like real people do”)_

Lydia had thought this all out. Since Kira had told her about the press tour she’d been planning. She was hoping that she’d figured out a way for everyone to come away from this with something that would benefit them. She was grateful that Kira had helped her with it, and grateful that she’d been behind the idea the whole time. Lydia was going to bring Stiles with her on the press tour. She and Stiles would fake date the entire time, allowing the press to pick up as many articles as they wanted to, bringing focus away from her breakup with Jackson, which was what her team wanted. Her image would be reborn into whatever they needed it to be and when they decided that Stiles wasn’t needed anymore, that their use for him had expired, he would have an great article to pull away from this with. Because Stiles was a great writer and he didn’t deserve to have his career tarnished because of this. Lydia was going to make sure of that. All of this could blow over and they could return to their careers with minimal damage. 

 

Lydia didn’t like thinking that there would be an end to this. She hated the idea that she would have to say goodbye to Stiles and move on with her life as if he was never a part of it. As if their “relationship” was just a little stint while he was writing this article. As if that was all it was, like something out of Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams music video. It would never be just that to Lydia. Stiles had impacted her in a way that she didn’t allow many people to do, and it hadn’t been a choice when it came to Stiles. Lydia was trying to push away any feelings towards him but she’d already let him in, and she was becoming so attached. She knew that it was going to hurt her when they parted ways after this, she just didn’t realise how much it would have until now. 

 

She was trying so hard to stop herself from feeling things that she knew would just lead to her own destruction, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She wanted to know Stiles, in every sense of the word. She wanted to learn everything about him in a way that she hadn’t really experienced before. Not even with Jackson. And she was terrified. She was terrified because she couldn’t distance herself, even if her head was telling her to, her heart was saying the opposite. She couldn’t let Stiles think there was something wrong so she played along. And now she was packing and preparing for another press tour. She’d been on a lot of them, but she’d never felt so disconnected before. And she could tell that people were noticing. And by people, she meant Allison and Kira. 

 

Allison was with her as she was packing, commenting on what she should bring for the tour. Obviously they needed a mix of the old Lydia and the new Lydia, but she was forgetting who that was. 

 

“Lydia, what’s wrong?” Allison asked after Lydia had failed to even register her question for the third time.

 

“What? Oh, sorry. I like the pink skirt better” she tried to recover.

 

Allison sighed and looked at her best friend sympathetically. “Please talk to me” she said. “You’ve been quiet and distant and even though it’s only been a few days it feels like a lifetime”.

 

“I’m sorry” Lydia said again, tried to avoid Allison’s eyes. 

 

“Is it Stiles?” Allison asked. She knew she was right when Lydia practically flinched at the name. “You have feelings for him”. It wasn’t a question.

 

Lydia was looking everywhere but Allison, her eyes darting around the room. “I don’t know what to do” she finally admitted, “I can’t really … tell him”.

 

“Think it over” Allison replied, “maybe you’ll find that you can”.

 

……….

 

Stiles was the worst person in the world. He had a lot of evidence to back this up. Subject A was that he was supposed to be leaving for his flight in twenty minutes ... and he was still packing. Scott was standing in his doorway laughing at him and pointedly not helping.

 

“You know” he smirked, “you’d think that since you were being whisked away by the love of your life that you’d be a little more organised”.

 

“You’d think that my best friend would be helping me and not mocking me” Stiles retorted, trying to squash his clothes down so he could close his suitcase.

 

“Nah, I’m good”.

 

Stiles finally managed to get his suitcase shut and rushed passed Scott.

 

“Have you got everything? Clothes, laptop charger, phone, undying love for Lydia Martin”.

 

“Shut up, Scott!”.

 

“You’re no fun anymore” Scott joke-pouted. He ducked and avoided being hit with one of the pillows his mum had given them as a housewarming gift. Stiles didn’t look happy that he’d missed. “I’ll be fine while you’re gone, thanks for asking” Scott called after him. 

 

Stiles grabbed his shoulder bag and stopped in the doorway. “Bye, Scott” he waved. 

 

“You’ll miss me”.

 

“Always” Stiles rolled his eyes.

 

“You better tell me all the details. Text me when you land!”.

 

Of course he would. And he’d tell him what he could. 

 

……….

 

Lydia had never experienced a time where she was thankful for being in a position where she could have a private plane. And yet here she was. The press had been tipped off that there would be a press tour, but they didn’t know any of the locations yet so Lydia found herself in a position where she could go to the airport and not feel like she was being watched the entire time. She was currently waiting, slightly impatiently, for Stiles to arrive. Allison and Kira were with her. Kira was rattling off things that were going to be happening on the press tour but Lydia really wasn’t listening. She had a lot of personal things to deal with right now so the press tour could wait until the very last moment to have her attention. She was trying not to think about Stiles and instead was finding that it was slightly impossible  _ not  _ to think about him. This trip might be even harder for her than she originally thought. 

 

Stiles eventually made it. He ran into the room practically red and considerably flustered. He was saying something about how he didn’t really travel so he wasn’t really used to the airport, and he’d gotten very lost at some stage. But Lydia could find herself barely listening and instead just looking at him. Because Stiles was stunning, and she was realising that he always had been. He flopped down in the seat next to her, panting from running halfway across the terminal. 

 

“Quite the adventure” he managed. 

 

Lydia laughed, “At least you made it in time for the flight”.

 

“Please, you couldn’t leave without me”.

 

“You’re right. We’d miss you too much” she smirked. 

 

Stiles laughed, still breathless, his head resting against the wall behind him. Lydia realised that she wanted to kiss him right then. She was in trouble. 

 

“Well, now that everyone’s here we can start heading off” Kira smirked.

 

Stiles groaned, “I just ran halfway across the stupid terminal and you expect me to  _ move  _ right now”.

 

“You gotta up your game, Stilinski” Allison mocked.

 

“You’re as bad as Scott” he muttered. “You two would probably have a deep and meaningful connection”.

 

“I look forward to the day where I finally meet him” Allison beamed.

 

A tall man in a pilot’s uniform appeared in the room. He motioned to Kira and she joined him. They spoke in quiet, serious voices that Lydia knew meant that something terrible was happening. She watched as Kira sighed quietly and turned her attention back to them.

 

“The press have finally been tipped off that we’re here. If we don’t leave now then they’ll definitely see us somehow” Kira announced.

 

“There’s just no peace is there?” Allison said.

 

Lydia just sighed. 

 

Stiles turned to look at her. An apology in his eyes. “Do you think I led them here?” he asked.

 

Lydia shook her head. “No, Stiles. Some people are just jerks”. Lydia stood and offered Stiles her hand so that she could help him up. 

 

He took it. “You’re an angel” he said.

 

Lydia froze and watched Stiles slowly register what he said. Everything seemed to be quiet for a moment.

 

“Sorry”.

 

“It’s ok” she replied automatically.  _ You are too _ , she thought.

 

After another quiet moment Kira ushered them all onto the plane. She was determined that the press not know about Stiles being there  _ at least  _ until they’d gotten to their destination. Which was probably a good idea since they were hoping that his presence would bring a lot of press that finally wasn’t bad press. 

 

Lydia had been on a lot of flights but she still felt a little bit jittery when it came to take offs and landings. And turbulence. Basically Lydia didn’t really like flying that much. Lydia clutched at Stiles’ hand whenever the plane shook, even the slightest bit. Neither of them looked at the other for the entirety of the flight. Her heart was beating rapidly in her chest and she knew it wasn’t caused by the plane. There was a significant difference. 

 

Lydia was in so much trouble.

 

……….

 

The only flights Stiles had ever been on were to and from Beacon Hills to visit his dad. And he always flew coach, however uncomfortable that could be. So everything about this trip was new to Stiles. Before he left home at Beacon Hills, he’d never even been on a plane before and now here he was on a private jet with a massive celebrity. That he was seemingly falling for, but that wasn’t important. He’d brought no less than 20 notepads with him so he could write down everything that happened. These were especially useful because he’d forgotten to charge his laptop last night. Well, he thought he’d charged it … but when he woke up he realised that it wasn’t even plugged in. And he was an idiot. So Stiles spent his time trying to find good enough words for his article, holding idle conversation with Allison and Kira, and screaming internally whenever Lydia grabbed his hand momentarily. It was a relatively smooth ride but she must have been more sensitive to turbulence. She was probably scared of flying, but Stiles didn’t ask. He didn’t speak to Lydia for the whole flight, or look at her. Stiles’ heart was beating in his chest so quickly that he thought it might give out soon. 

 

For some reason they’d been lucky enough that when they arrived the press still had no idea where they were. Stiles had never been so impressed with Kira and her abilities to sneak all of them around without being noticed. She seemed pretty impressed with herself as well. They even managed to make it to the hotel unscathed which had to be some kind of record. It was a five star hotel, Stiles had never so much as stepped foot in one before so he spent most of the walk to their rooms gazing around in complete amazement. And taking endless snaps to send to Scott. 

 

“Stiles, you’re making it impossible for us to forget that you’re also a photographer” Allison teased.

 

“Hey, I promised Scott that I’d send him all the details” he defended.

 

“He better not tell anyone” Kira muttered.

 

“Pffttt” Stiles shrugged, stopped short when Kira turned and glared at him. “He won’t tell anyone” he said, threw up his free hand in surrender. 

 

“Good” Kira smiled, too sweetly. 

 

Lydia laughed, smiled at Stiles when he turned to look at her. His heart stuttered.

 

“Alright” Kira stopped. “Allison this is your room, Lydia you’re next to Allison and Stiles your room is” she spun on the spot “across from Lydia’s. Tomorrow we have to be up at seven for a little team meeting so we can decide what’s happening tomorrow. Lydia you have one interview in the afternoon but that’s all for the day”.

 

“Seven?” Stiles gaped, “I didn’t realise I was still in high school”.

 

“Get used to it. I’ll see you all tomorrow” she said before disappearing into her room.

 

Stiles turned to face Allison and Lydia. “Seven?” he said again. 

 

Lydia laughed but didn’t say anything.

 

“That’s showbiz” Allison filled the silence, smirking. 

 

“I don’t like this” he replied, turning to unlock the door to his room. When Stiles got inside he just gaped. The room was incredible, and huge. There was a pair of large glass doors at the other end of the room so Stiles could see onto the balcony even from the doorway, and boy did his room have an amazing view. He’d never seen a view like this. At least, not anywhere that wasn’t a tourist destination. The bed was massive, there was a flat screen TV. The room was nicely and neatly furnished and decorated. Stiles was mostly in shock. He made his way over to the bed, threw down his luggage and was about to flop onto the bed when he heard a knock on the door. Confused Stiles made his way back over the the door. When he opened it Lydia was standing on the other side. 

 

“Hey” he said.

 

“Hey” she replied. “Can I come in?”.

 

“Sure” he muttered, pulling the door open enough to let her in and then closing it behind her. Stiles turned to face her.

 

“Um” she muttered, twisted her hands in front of her and ignored his eyes. “I thought that maybe we should talk about … how we’re going to approach … everything”.

 

“Oh” Stiles nodded, “we probably should”. 

 

Lydia smiled faintly, but still avoided his eyes. 

 

Stiles took a step closer to her. “Lydia” he said, “have I done something wrong?”.

 

Her head snapped up. “No. Why would you think that?”.

 

“This is the first time you’ve looked at me all day” he muttered.

 

“Stiles -”.

 

“Could you just … talk to me about it?” he cut her off.

 

“Fake dating you is going to be a lot harder than I thought” Lydia explained, the words flowing uncontrollably out of her mouth. 

 

“Why?” Stiles asked.

 

Lydia surged forward. She wrapped her arms around Stiles’ neck and pulled his mouth to hers, kissing him slowly. Stiles wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to him. The kiss only lasted a moment before Lydia pulled away again. Stiles could barely breathe. 

 

“Oh”.

 

“I - I should go” she stammered.

 

“Lydia, wait” Stiles managed, but she was already out the door. With shaky hands Stiles reached into his pocket for his phone. He dialed Scott’s number and waited. Straight to voicemail because of course Scott was at work saving lives that didn’t belong to Stiles. “Scott, it’s me. As soon as you get this call me back straight away” he said into the phone and hung up. He felt like his head was spinning and he was probably going to pass out. But he needed to talk to someone and if it wasn’t Scott then he had to find someone else. So he started making his way to the next best person he could think of. Stiles exited the apartment, walked across the hallway and knocked on Allison’s door. When the door opened Allison gave him a quick once over before ushering him inside. 

 

“What happened to you?” she asked. “You’re a mess”.

 

“Lydia kissed me” Stiles said. Saying that out loud and having it start to sink in was such an amazing feeling. He was starting to get incredibly jittery.

 

Allison closed her eyes and tilted her head so she was facing the ceiling. “Finally” she whispered. 

 

“What do you mean finally?” he asked.

 

“Take a seat, Stilinski, you’re gonna need it”.

 

Stiles could barely stand anyway so he did what he was told. Allison took a seat across from him and didn’t take her eyes off him. It was starting to make him a little uncomfortable.

 

“Tell me what happened” she said, in a softer voice than he was expecting. 

 

“She kissed me” he replied.

 

“Are you going to elaborate on that at all?”.

 

“She came into my room and she said that we should talk about the fake dating thing. And I asked her what was wrong because she wasn’t looking at me, and she hasn’t looked at me all I don’t know if you’ve noticed” -”.

 

“I’ve noticed” Allison smirked. Stiles realised that she must have thought this was inevitable, like she knew this was going to happen and just didn’t tell anyone. 

 

“She said that it would be too hard for her, fake dating I mean, and I asked why and then she kissed me” Stiles finished.

 

“What was the kiss like? Was it fleeting was it slow?”.

 

“Slow. Definitely slow”. 

 

Allison laughed and shook her head slowly. “Finally” she said again.

 

“You keep saying that -”.

 

“Stiles, listen you’ve got about three minutes before a hysterical Lydia comes crashing into my room so either you could be here and face that or you could quickly return to your room and we can pretend like this never happened”.

 

Stiles gulped and stood up. He thanked Allison and left the room. He’d just closed his door behind him when he heard a door open and Lydia knocking insistently on Allison’s door. He was still completely lost and had no idea what he was expected to do about this situation. And Scott was still at work which meant that he was too busy to return Stiles’ call. So he was in this all alone.   
  


Stiles was so lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remember when Corinne read this for the first time and all she sent me was "WHAT THE FUCK!!!" and I had to tell her that it was in the title. So I hope this was as unexpected for you guys as it was for her.  
> I'll see you next week!


	9. Without You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's about to get sad, my friends.  
> Chapter Title Song: Without You by Breaking Benjamin

_ “There’s nothing left to lose/The fighting never ends/I can’t face the dark without you” _

Stiles hated alarm clocks with the burning passion of a thousand suns. He hated that he would have to use one, probably most days, while on this press tour. He hated the glowing numbers that said 6:30. He hated that he had to drag himself out of bed when it was still  _ dark outside the sun isn’t even up what the hell _ . No sane person should be up at this hour, and yet here he was. Stiles practically rolled out of bed, his body unwilling to comply to his movements. He decided that it would just be best if he just went about this as if it was his normal routine, so he had a shower and somehow managed to pull on a pair of jeans. There was a knock at the door and he groaned loudly, not even bothering to throw on a shirt before opening the door. Allison was standing on the other side and as soon as she saw him she started beaming as if she’d suddenly come alive. She looked way too awake for this time of the morning.

“I’m so glad that I caught you while you were getting dressed because that’s exactly what I need to help you with” she smiled, her eyes slowly giving him a once over, taking in his wet hair and shirtless torso.

Stiles was too tired to feel objectified. “I can dress myself, you know” he said as Allison barged into his room. 

“You haven’t even unpacked yet?” she ignored him.

“Why bother? We’re probably leaving in a few days”.

“Stiles. I need to style you. I’m a stylist. This is my job” Allison was saying. She dropped to the floor and opened his suitcase, starting to sort through the clothes before he could say anything. But Stiles wasn’t even bothered to stop her. “Why do you have so much plaid in here?”.

“It’s just what I wear” he replied, making his way over to the coffee machine. 

Allison sighed, sat back on her heels and was seemingly deep in thought for a moment. Eventually she seemed to give up and threw a red plaid button up at Stiles. He caught it and was half surprised and half impressed at himself. “That’ll do” she sighed.

“Look, I’m sorry if I don’t have the biggest wardrobe for you to play around with -”

“Stiles” Allison interrupted, “It’s not even that important. Honestly it makes you seem more real”.

“Realness is a constant topic since I entered your world” he responded.

“I see you’ve spoken to Lydia”.

“I’ve done more than just spoken to her” Stiles muttered, slowly turning red as the night before came back to him. It was pretty obvious that the kiss was something that Lydia would never let happen again, but  _ god  _ it had been perfect. He just wished it had lasted longer.

“We’re all going to be fucked over in this Stiles. Lydia more than anyone” Allison said seriously, standing up again.

Stiles nodded, suddenly very awake. “Allison” he said, “What the hell am I supposed to do?”.

“Just be you, Stiles. She needs that” Allison smiled sympathetically before turning on her heel and starting towards the door. “And put on that shirt” she said and then exited the apartment. 

Stiles felt very alone for reasons he didn’t quite know. Suddenly the room felt very empty as if Allison had taken any kind of warmth with her. It felt cold without her. Or maybe it was just because she had successfully distracted him from his thoughts, which weren’t too pleasant a place at the moment. He couldn’t be certain that Lydia kissing him wasn’t a mistake. Or that he wasn’t some kind of rebound, and that chilled him to the core. Stiles moved to open the blinds at the other side of his room, the sun was slowly starting to make its appearance for the day, maybe the warmth of the rays would soak into his skin if he hoped for it enough. He looked down at the shirt that was still in his hand, he quickly threw it over his head and did up the remaining buttons. Kira would probably start banging on his door soon anyway since it was approaching 7, which was obviously meeting time. 

It wasn’t even five minutes later when there was another knock on his door, and the sound of Kira calling his name. He could never fault her for her efficiency. Stiles just had enough time to throw on his shoes and grab his coffee cup. He opened the door just as Kira was preparing for another knock. 

“Morning” he said.

“You look wrecked” she smirked. 

“You’re lucky I’m even awake at this time. I haven’t been up this early since college” he retorted.

“I’m grateful for your presence, Mr Stilinski”.

“That’s what I thought” he smiled, fell into step next to her as she started making her way down the hallway. 

“You excited for the day ahead?” Kira asked.

“Not really” he admitted.

Kira stopped and looked at him seriously. “Stiles, if you need to back out I guess now is your last available chance”.

Stiles shook his head. Maybe things would be a little awkward and possibly uncomfortable between him and Lydia, but he wouldn’t allow her to be left in the arms of someone that the mass of unknowing faces would pick for her. He could never do that to her. “You know I’m in this completely” he said to her.

Kira nodded, smiled just the faintest bit. “I’m so happy to hear you say that”.

“I guess, I am too”.

Kira’s smile grew and she started down the hallway again. Stiles fell easily into step next to her again and felt a little of that warmth settle within him. He was vaguely aware that he could hear the clicking of Kira’s heels on the floor, which meant they’d progressed from the carpet of the hallway. He was brought back down to earth when she stopped in front of him. The door they were in front of was the same as every meeting room he’d ever been in. He wondered if they’d moved buildings without him noticing. Kira pushed the door open and he followed her in. 

Lydia and Allison were already sitting in the room around a round table that was in the middle. The room was small, more like an office than the meeting room that Stiles had originally thought. The wall on the far side was made entirely of windows, the view told Stiles that they were definitely in the same building as before. He took a seat next to Lydia, smiling at her kindly. She smiled back faintly, but he could tell that she was already regretting the night before. He almost felt sick.

“Good to see you again” Allison beamed.

“Nice to be awake this time” he replied.

“Alright” Kira started. Stiles was starting to believe that her clipboard was just an extension of her body at this point. “Questions, concerns and queries are what we’re here for. And then once that’s all out of the way we organise what’s happening roughly for the rest of the trip”.

“Probably should have done that  _ before  _ we started the trip” Allison smirked.

Kira rolled her eyes. “The faceless men that run the damn company almost forgot about the trip”.

Lydia laughed, the others joining her quickly. 

Kira pushed her clipboard aside. Stiles was so shocked he probably could have fallen out of his chair.

“Won’t you die without holding that” he joked.

Kira smiled wickedly. “Surprisingly I am actually a person outside of the incredible business woman that you’re accustomed to”.

“And this whole time I thought you were a robot”.

“Wait, you mean I’ve been lying to my dad this whole time?” Allison asked.

Kira rolled her eyes again, though a smile was on her lips. “Obviously the most important thing about this is that the two of you are comfortable” she said, bringing the discussion back to the topic at hand and looking between Stiles and Lydia. “I know that this is going to be a really weird thing for the two of you to be doing -”.

“But it’ll bring the focus off Jackson” Lydia interrupted, speaking for the first time in the session.

Something pulled at Stiles’ heart. She was still so heartbroken about Jackson, how could he tell if there was anything between them or if she just needed something to replace her ex momentarily. A moment of weakness.

“Exactly” Kira continued, “and that’s exactly what we want. Your fans will see that you’re happy and the media will see that you’ve moved on. Initially Jackson will be brought up in articles and reports but with the help of the press tour soon everyone will have forgotten about Jackson”.

_ Everyone except for Lydia _ , Stiles thought. 

Allison placed her hand on the back of Lydia’s shoulder, trying to calm her down since she was obviously becoming upset.

“I know this is a sore topic” Kira said, and there was a lot of humility and concern in her voice. “What happened  _ did  _ happen and that can’t be erased for you, but if we can bring the attention to something else then you’ll be able to stop hearing about it every other day. That’ll make it easier won’t it?”. You could tell that Kira was starting to doubt this. Maybe she always had and she’d just gone along with it to keep her job. Or maybe she had thought at the time that it would be their best option moving forward. But it was obvious as she looked across at Lydia now, who was staring at her hands in her lap quietly, that she hoped there could have been some other alternative. 

“So if there’s anything that can be done to make this easier  _ please  _ let me know” Kira finished. 

They sat in a silence that seemed to drag on forever. Lydia started quietly crying and Stiles started to feel sick to his stomach. He wished there was something he could do. Kira wished there was something she could do. And the same for Allison, who was rubbing soothing circles into Lydia’s back.

“Lydia” Stiles said finally, breaking the silence that had frozen them. She looked up at him slowly, the tears shining on her face, “Is there anything that  _ I  _ can do make this easier?” he asked, because she hadn’t said anything to Kira but he  _ needed to know _ . 

Lydia shook her head silently and Stiles’ heart plummeted even further down in his stomach than usual. 

“We really need to talk this out” Allison said slowly, her voice an even calm. “To make this easier for everyone, ok?”.

Lydia nodded but continued to stay silent. 

“Ok” Stiles announced, resting his hands on the table in front of him. “Why don’t we go over what everyone’s role is. Allison, you’re a stylist you just … continuing styling and making everyone looked good. Kira you … boss everyone around and hold that clipboard like you do and Lydia and I will just -”

“Stiles” Lydia interrupted, his attention snapping to her quickly. “We just have to pretend to love each other” she said.

“No problem” he replied. That wasn’t really a hard for him to pretend to do, because he already loved her. Yes, he’d sort of fallen in love with an idea of her. An idealised view of her in the same way everyone falls in love with their favourite celebrity. But since meeting her … she was so different to what he expected her to be. And so much more incredible than he expected her to be. And so very real. And he’d developed feelings for her, very real feelings because of who she was as a person not because of who she pretended to be in the public eye. Or who people had written her to be. She was just perfect to him, just the way she was. And Stiles loved her. And for a split second the night before Stiles had thought that maybe she loved him too, but that wasn't something that mattered to him while he sat and watched her cry about someone who had torn her apart. He just wanted to be there to help her put her pieces back together, so that she could feel how amazing she was. And he didn’t care if nothing happened between them, none of that mattered as long as at the end of all of this she was somehow ok again. And if he could help in anyway he would, without question. 

He caught Allison’s eye as Lydia looked down again. Her face was apologetic and her eyes sad. Stiles thought about what she’d said earlier. They were all going to be fucked over in this. And of course Lydia more than any of them. 

“We’ll start this slowly” Kira broke then new silence that had formed, “everyone wants to see you happy and that can be a gradual thing”.

Lydia nodded mutely.

“Well, now that that’s all settled we can all go. Lydia there’s an amazing pool here and I’m sure that will make you feel better” she smiled faintly, her smile falling again when Lydia didn’t respond. “I’ll be seeing you later so we can organise ourselves for that interview but there’s a lot of hours between now and then”. Kira’s resolve was slowly fading away so instead she stood up, grabbing her clipboard off the table. “Stiles, will you be able to find you way back to your room?” She asked. 

Stiles nodded, “I’ll be fine”.

Kira returned his nod and left the room, she was obviously starting to become upset and maybe she was trying to distance herself a little from that. Or maybe she was going to plan this entire trip by herself. The air in the room seemed to go stale in her wake. 

Allison stood slowly. “I’ll let the two of you have a minute to discuss all of this” she said, and then exited as well.

The silence stretched on for what had to be at least a few minutes in real time even if it felt like a few hours. Stiles wasn’t sure what to do or say. He wasn’t sure if he needed to comfort Lydia. Or how to go about doing that. He was slowly building up the courage when he heard Lydia say his name. His attention snapped to her quickly.

  
“Yeah?” He asked.

“I don’t know if I can do this” she whispered, as if something would shatter if she spoke louder. Stiles thought that that something might have been her heart.

“What do you mean?”. He moved his chair closer to her.

Lydia sighed and slowly rubbed her hands over her eyes. “Stiles” she started. And then didn’t continue.

“Is it me?” He asked. 

Lydia shook her head, almost violently. “No” she paused, “this is just going to be hard for me”.

“And you can talk to me about it, ok? At any time of the day”.

Lydia smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Thank you” she said.

After another minute of silence Lydia got up and left the room without another word to Stiles. He sat quietly and tried to will his thoughts into order. His head was full of jumbled up words and he couldn’t make sense of anything. He so badly needed to talk to Scott. He was the only person that could pull Stiles back in again. But when he had to keep so many of these things a secret, he wasn’t sure if even that would help him. Nevertheless Stiles managed to make it back to his room by some miracle. His shaking hands found their way to his phone and he managed to dial Scott’s number. Surprisingly he actually picked up.

_ “Hey dude, sorry I was just about to call you back. It’s been really busy here”  _ Scott apologised.

“All good, man. Sorry for leaving such a weird message”.

_ “So what happened did she kiss you or something”  _ he laughed.

“Well …” Stiles trailed off.

_ “NO WAY!”. _

“Yeah” Stiles muttered.

_ “DUDE!”. _

“Listen bro, I’ve kinda been sworn to secrecy about what’s happening here. You know, because of the article” he explained. Stiles was pretty sure that half-truths were allowed in this situation.

_ “You sound wrecked, bro. Tell me everything. Everything that you can, I mean”. _

……….

Lydia gazed absently at the glowing numbers of her alarm clock, 3:24. She wasn’t really sure why she couldn’t sleep. She should have been able to. It wasn’t like she had anything exciting to look forward to the next day. It would probably be the same as the day before, maybe with more interviews. And that was probably the least exciting thing she could think of doing. The interview the day before had went fine. She had been perfectly pleasant to the interviewer, who wasn’t even that bad this time. She’d answered all the questions thoughtfully and as if they really meant something to her. She talked about what it was like being on set, how excited she was for the premier and release of the film, why her hair always looked so good. All mundane things that she was sure she’d answered a thousand times before. And no one would have been able to tell how sad she was, because she’d done a brilliant job of pretending that she wasn’t. 

Lydia looked at the glowing numbers once again. This time they said 3:27. Time could go incredibly slow when she just needed it to pass. She wished that she could fall asleep somehow but instead she had two billion thoughts running around in her head. She was thinking about Jackson, about all the things that he’d said to her while they were together. About how they must have all been lies towards the end. She wondered how long he’d been lying to her. She still didn’t know how long he’d been with that dance instructor. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, but maybe it would give her some peace of mind if she did. Maybe if she knew how long he’d belonged to someone else she would feel finally feel settled enough. And maybe she would stop thinking about him. She thought about Kira and their plan to push focus as far away from Jackson as possible. She hoped that it would work somehow. That if she pretended to be so happy without him that maybe he would just disappear. She wasn’t sure if that was something she wanted, but she wouldn’t be opposed to not hearing his name ever again. She thought about Allison and how worried she seemed to be. She knew that she wasn’t in the best place right now. The main giveaway was that she hardly spoke to Allison anymore. Not about what she really needed to talk about. She wasn’t sure why, but she was internalising all of these feelings. Somehow she couldn’t even talk to Allison about it, or at least she felt like she couldn’t. And maybe that was one of the reasons why she felt so unsettled. 

Lydia thought about Stiles. She thought about how he was also slowly achieving the same worried gaze as Allison. She thought about the mess that the two of them had found themselves in. She thought about how she knew that she could talk to him about anything because they were both on the same page. They’d both been practically thrown into this. Practically thrown together. She thought about how she  _ wanted  _ to talk to Stiles about it, because for some reason Stiles was safe. Stiles was slowly becoming one of the most important people in her world. And that scared her for reasons even she couldn’t detangle from the ball of thoughts in her head. She thought about how much he seemed to care for her, really care for her. In a way that Jackson never seemed to. She thought about kissing him. About how  _ right  _ it had felt. She’d tried to push the thought away but her tired mind was seeming to focus on it. Stiles was safe and Stiles was warmth and she wished things could be easier. 

Lydia looked looked at the glowing number once more, 3:30. She rubbed her eyes and slowly made her way out of bed, wrapping a robe around herself. She made her way out of the apartment and across the hall. She knocked on one of the doors and hoped that it was loud enough to be heard. It only took about two minutes before the door opened.

“Lydia?” Stiles muttered, rubbing his eyes as if to make sure what he was seeing was real. Or maybe he was just as tired as she was. His hair was a mess and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Lydia stopped breathing momentarily. 

“Stiles” she said quietly, suddenly realising that it was 3:30 in the morning and this was probably a terrible idea.

“You couldn’t sleep” he said before she could continue.

Lydia nodded, “I’m sorry if I woke you”.

He smiled. “I told you we could talk at any time of the day and that includes 3:30 in the morning”. Stiles stepped aside and pulled the door open further to let Lydia inside.

“Thank you” she said quietly. 

“Take a seat wherever you like this room is pretty extensive” Stiles laughed.

She was practically in awe of him. He was so natural, even at 3:30 in the morning. Lydia took a seat on the couch. 

“Do you need a coffee or anything?’.

Lydia shook her head.

  
“Just need to talk?”.

She nodded, patted the empty space next to her.

Stiles grabbed a shirt from his open suitcase and threw it on before sitting next to her. “So what do you need to talk about?” He asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the angst kicks in, I guess.  
> I'll see you all next week!


	10. Into The Wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is a little late and I'm really sorry about that. It's been a crazy week so far. I hope you all enjoy it!  
> Chapter Title Song: Into The Wild by Lewis Watson

_ “I just want you to know/You’re the only one that pulls me in” _

 

Lydia sat quietly for a few minutes and thought the question over. Really it was something she should have known the answer to straight away. She should have known exactly what to tell Stiles because she’d been wanting to talk to someone for what felt like a month or so. But she didn’t know the answer straight away. There were so many things that she could tell him, could talk to him about. So many thoughts had been plaguing her of late, but her mind was all tangled and she could barely find any words at all within it. She tried to think about what the source of all this had to be, what was causing her to feel as if all of this was entirely hopeless. The more she thought the more she realised what it was. Or rather, who it was. She tried to untangle the right words from the ball of her mind but she couldn’t seem to grasp them. She looked up at Stiles. He was being so patient with her, but she felt like he would regret it once he heard the words she wanted to say. She thought that they would hurt him, though she didn’t know why. The words were slowly coming to her and she took a deep breath to help with forcing them out.

 

“I can’t stop thinking about Jackson” she said. 

 

She had to credit Stiles, his expression didn’t change. Maybe he’d known the answer before she had. Maybe he’d been prepared for this. “What about him?” he replied easily.

 

Lydia reached over and took his hand slowly, tangling their fingers together. For some reason she needed to, and he didn’t seem opposed to the idea. “Just about the lies” she continued. “About everything that he said while we were together”.

 

Stiles nodded, staring down at their hands, “You were together a long time”.

 

“And there were probably others. I mean, others as well as who he’s with now”.

 

“While you were with him. Yeah, there probably was” he squeezed her hand.

 

“The more I think about him the more I realise that he was a disgusting person” Lydia whispered. “Allison used to tell me that but I never believed her”.

 

“At least now you know never to doubt her again”.

 

“Even my mum warned me about him. She never critiqued anything that I did or anyone that I associated with, except for Jackson. I spent six years of my life with someone who probably barely cared about me at all”.

 

Stiles squeezed her hand again and took a deep breath as if he was going to say something. But he stopped himself before the words came out.

 

Lydia looked up at him. “He was constantly flirting with Allison. The more I think about it the more I realise that he was serious and that it wasn’t a joke like he kept insisting. I was stupid to even believe that”.

 

Stiles locked eyes with her. “Lydia, you’re not stupid” he said, “being blinded by the actions of someone because you love them isn’t stupidity”.

 

“It feels like it is” she whispered, looking down at their hands again and avoided his eyes. 

 

“Lydia … I really don’t know how I can help. Or what I can say ....” he trailed off.

 

“I guess, I don’t really expect you too”.

 

A silence fell over them. The room was almost eerily quiet, the only sound being the muffled sound of occasional traffic coming from the window on the other side of the room. Eventually Lydia slowly unlocked their fingers and pulled her hand away. Instead she moved closer to Stiles, resting her head against his chest and wrapping her arms loosely around his waist. She could hear as his heart began to speed up as his mind registered the movement and she smiled to herself. She felt as Stiles’ arms wound their way around her. There was only one word clear in her mind, somehow it had managed to avoid the tangle of her thoughts. The word was  _ safe _ . 

 

“Is this ok?” She asked him, barely above a whisper.

 

“Yeah” he muttered. She could tell that he was flustered and fought the urge to laugh, instead snuggling even closer to him. There was a sharp inhale of breath. 

 

“Are you ok?”.

 

“Yep”.

 

Lydia smiled, finally feeling content for the first time in what seemed like months if not years. Stiles seemed to build up the courage to run his fingers gently through her hair. She was suddenly struck with the realisation that this was what it felt like to be comforted. Really comforted. Jackson had never done anything like this before, and she hated that she even thought about him in this moment. But it was the truth. He’d hardly even held her. Especially not like Stiles was right now. She was trying not to think too hard about why Stiles felt like home to her, but she was grateful regardless. He was a good person, and maybe one day she would be worthy enough to deserve him, and deserve this. It didn’t feel like that moment was now, but this was something she needed, as if Stiles was holding her together. And maybe she would break apart when they remembered that they had to return to the real world. But right now she just wanted to soak in these feelings of safety and warmth. Right now that was enough.

 

……….

Stiles wasn’t one to usually wake up late. He was usually up and stuck in the morning traffic just like every other normal person, but he’d lost some sleep that night. After Lydia left at around 4:30 he realised that he would basically have to be awake in two and a half hours. He almost didn’t want to sleep, because maybe if he fell asleep he would wake up knowing that everything was a dream. But he knew this was reality. And he was so tired. So he’d made his way back to his bed. He didn’t keep track of how many times he hit the snooze button on his alarm, and maybe he should have because the next time he was awoken it was to the sound of someone banging loudly on his hotel room door. And that could only mean one thing. 

 

Stiles looked at the glowing numbers on his bedside table. He could see that the room was lighter than it usually was when he woke up. 7:25, the numbers said.  _ Shit _ , he thought. Stiles forced himself out of bed in a flurry of movement. Somehow he’d tangled himself in the sheets and almost fell out of the bed while trying to untangle himself. He was just about to throw a shirt on when he heard a voice calling from the other side of the door.

 

“Stilinski, if you don’t open this door right now I’m going to break it down. My dad has military like training that he passed on to me so you’re going to be sorry” Allison’s voice was unmistakable. 

 

“Shit” Stiles muttered, ditching the shirt and half jogging to the door. 

 

“Kira is going to have your head” Allison said once he’d flung it open. She barged into the apartment in a rush, quickly making for his suitcase and grabbing what seemed to be the first outfit she could find. 

 

“I’m sorry” he managed, rubbing firstly his eyes and then his hair that he knew must have been a mess. 

 

“Shower, Stiles. Now” was all she replied with. “Unless you were having crazy sex last night there is no excuse” she threw the clothes at him.

 

Somehow he managed to catch them. “No crazy sex. Scout’s honor” he saluted her, almost dropping the clothes in the process.

 

“Shower”.

 

“Ok, ok. I’m going” he muttered, starting to make his way to the bathroom.

 

“I’m going to be back here in ten minutes if you’re not presentable or look worthy enough to be seen next to Lydia Martin then you’re going to see angry stylist me and you’ll want to avoid that” Allison smirked.

 

_ What have I gotten myself into?  _ “I’ll be ready” he replied, closed the bathroom door behind him. 

……….

 

Allison knocked on her door while Lydia was in the middle of her morning makeup routine. She always left the door open during this time if anyone needed to visit her, whether it be Allison or Kira to tell her about her plans of the day. She knew it was Allison because she entered cursing about things that Lydia didn’t quite catch. She heard Stiles’ name somewhere and something about angry stylist and even though she wasn’t quite sure what was happening she pitied Stiles. Angry Stylist Allison was definitely not a sight you wanted to see. Thankfully it was a rarity. 

 

“What happened with Stiles?” Lydia asked, pausing before making the finishing touches to her eye shadow. 

 

“The kid just jumped in the shower now. Kira is going to go nuts if he’s not ready”.

 

“Relax, he’ll be ready. I’m running behind as well today” she replied, Allison coming into view in the her mirror as she pulled up a chair and sat behind her. 

 

“It’s a little curious isn’t it? Both you and Stiles running a little bit behind on the same morning” Allison smirked.

 

Lydia rolled her eyes slowly, taking extra care with her eyeliner and didn’t respond.

 

“Don’t worry, he’s already assured me that there was no crazy sex in his room. But he was considerably flustered when I mentioned it”.

 

“Stiles always seems to be flustered” Lydia muttered, trying to hide the fact that her own cheeks were becoming flushed. And it wasn’t the makeup. 

 

“Yes, but this morning it was more than usual. Peculiar isn’t it?” Allison raised an eyebrow, still smirking. 

 

“If you want me to say that I was in Stiles’ room last night then fine. I was in his room”.

 

“A wonderful development”.

 

“Whatever you think happened didn’t, really we just sort of … talked and … hugged”. Part of her still sort of thought that it was a dream. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d really felt that safe and content. If she ever had.

 

“Snuggled is probably a better word”.

 

“Allison, can we talk about this later. I’m a little busy” Lydia said. She looked down at the various products lined up in front of her instead of making eye contact of sorts through the mirror.

 

“No problem. It’s been ten minutes anyway. But I’ll be pestering you about this later”.

 

“Great” Lydia muttered once Allison had closed the door behind her.

 

……….

 

Stiles was just buttoning up his shirt when he heard the daunting knock on the door. He looked at the bedside clock, exactly ten minutes had passed, seems like Allison could have Kira-like efficiency when she wanted to. Maybe that thought was a little terrifying. He did up the last button and made his way over to the door. Throwing it open just as Allison was preparing for her second knock.

 

“Well” he said. “Am I presentable enough?”.

 

“You’ll do” she shrugged, making her way into the apartment. “Why do you only have one pair of shoes?”.

 

“Why would I need more than that? They’re black. They go with everything”.

 

Allison huffed, rubbing circles into her temple slowly. “This is going to be the end of me” she said to herself.

 

“Allison, if there’s a problem you should probably just tell me” Stiles muttered, made his way over the coffee machine because he could already feel the tiredness creeping up on him.

 

“I’m not angry at you Stiles, or anything like that”.

 

“Then what is it?” He turned, leaning against the counter and gazing over at her with his coffee cup in hand.

 

“This entire press tour is just going to be a little overwhelming” she shrugged.

 

“Why?”.

 

“Stiles, it’s a long story and I don’t quite want to go into it right now. You look presentable, now let’s go meet with Kira before she kills all of us”.

 

“Fine, but I’m asking you about this later”.

 

“Fine”.

 

………

“You took your time” Kira smirked as the three of them entered the room and sat down at the table. “I have no time for explanations” she continued before any of the could speak. “We just need a run through of the day before heading straight for -”

 

“Breakfast?” Stiles interrupted.

 

“I’ll make sure we have time for breakfast, Stiles” she replied, the smirk still present on her face.

 

“How many interviews have a I got today?” Lydia asked, her hands were sitting neatly in her lap as she gave Kira her full attention.

 

“Well, firstly you’re meeting up with the rest of the cast. You guys can have a little catch up before heading into the first round of interviews. Then you’ll go into a whirlwind of interviews”.

 

“Oh great, I love those” she sighed.

 

Kira smiled sympathetically. “I know, just the same questions over and over again, but it has to be done”. 

 

“I’ll be with you for as much of it as I can” Allison reassured. “And of course you’ll have your cast” she added.

 

“The only thing that makes it bearable” Lydia laughed.

 

“So what do I have to do?” Stiles asked. 

 

Kira shrugged. “I still haven’t got it all figured out. You two have to be seen together, but gradually”.

 

“I’d rather not be asked about my love life in this round of interviews if possible” Lydia muttered, looking down at her lap and not meeting Stiles’ eyes. 

 

“I’m sure your fellow cast members would be happy to help divert any of those questions” Allison smiled. 

 

Lydia nodded in response. 

 

“So basically I have nothing to do, all day?” Stiles looked over at Kira, slightly shocked. 

 

“Well, you can start writing up questions for a potential interview” she said simply.

 

“Genius” Allison smirked.

 

“Have to keep you working, Stiles” Kira added, replicating Allison’s smirk. “That’s what you’re here for anyway”.

  
  


……….

 

If there was anything that Lydia hated more than interviews, it was a whirlwind of interviews. Not only were the questions often exactly the same but the interviewers weren’t usually as polite as they could be. Her only solace would be that she wouldn’t be doing them alone. She hadn’t seen her fellow cast members since they’d wrapped up filming about a year ago, so she was grateful to catch up with them. Nothing really changed in Hollywood, which meant that even though it had been a whole year there wasn’t really all that much to catch up on. One of her cast members was pregnant, Lydia recalled her saying that her and her husband had started trying back when they had been filming, so Lydia did her best to be excited for her. They talked about the projects they’d worked on in the past year and about other personal things that Lydia avoided. Though she wasn’t the youngest in the cast she seemed to be the only one without some sort of romantic partner, and she hated that that was making her uncomfortable. 

 

The day went by in a blur of activity. She was with this cast member talking to an interview and then she was with someone else talking to a different one. She couldn’t even remember what the questions were so they must have been as unremarkable as she thought they would be. When Lydia had time to herself, she found that she ended up thinking about Stiles. And, God that was dangerous. She shouldn’t be having any sort of feelings towards Stiles. This was supposed to be fake and not real in any way. And yet here she was, in the middle of a mass amount of interviews that were so conveniently avoiding her love life, thinking about it anyway. She wondered what Stiles was doing now and if he was as restless as she was. Maybe he wouldn’t as good at internalising it as she was. Maybe he was writing that article, or starting to. Maybe he was starting to catch feelings as well. Though Lydia was distracted the entire time, she hoped that she didn’t come across that way to anyone else, especially in the interviews. She held herself with the same poise that she always did, answered the questions in the same way that she always did. And if she seemed distant then maybe her cast members were connecting that to her break up, because none of them said anything. And she was so grateful.

 

……….

 

“So how’s the bae?” Scott asked, a smirk present on his face. Whenever one of them went away they always set aside time for video calls, because they always had exciting things to tell each other. But for the first time in his life, Stiles didn’t really feel like talking to Scott. Or at least, that it wouldn’t help if he did. 

 

“She’s not my bae, Scott” he replied. He could hear some shuffling in the background and wasn’t entirely surprised when Isaac came into view. He was even less surprised that he was holding a bag of Mexican take out. 

“Hi Stiles” Isaac waved, beaming. “I’d offer you some Mexican but they haven’t invented the technology to send it through computer screens yet”.

 

Stiles rolled his eyes, though he was smiling at his idiot of a friend.

 

“How’s the article going?” Isaac continued. 

 

“It’s not really going anywhere at the moment” he replied.

 

“Why?”.

 

“Well, we only just got here so there’s not much to write yet”.

 

“You could write about how you kissed Lydia Martin” Scott beamed. 

 

The look on Isaac’s face told him that this was the first time he was hearing about it. Which was good in a way because that meant Scott hadn’t spilled the beans.

 

“You kissed her!?” Isaac asked, seemingly in shock.

 

“She kissed me” Stiles shrugged. 

 

“SHE KISSED YOU!?”.

 

Stiles looked around himself absently. Even though he was the only one in this hotel room, and even though he doubted that anyone could hear anything coming from the room for some reason this whole secrecy thing had made him check over his shoulder all the time. “Yeah” he replied, “Two days ago”.

 

“I’ll take it that nothing has happened since?” Scott asked, he was sobering as he finally started to realise just how uptight Stiles was in that moment.

 

Stiles shook his head in response. 

 

“She spoken about it?” Scott continued, leaning forward just slightly and turning very serious. Isaac placed his food down and did the same, though he still seemed to be in a state of shock. 

 

Stiles shook his head again.

 

“Damn”.

 

“I’m not sure if I’m some kind of rebound, since Jackson only shattered entire being like a month ago”.

“Dude, that’s rough” Isaac responded, coming out of his trance. 

 

“Did she say anything to you after she kissed you?” Scott asked.

 

“No she just left”.

 

Scott grimaced, finally seeing how complicated this situation was. And he only knew a small amount of what was happening.

 

“What are you gonna do?” Isaac muttered.

 

“I don’t want to push her” Stiles shrugged.

 

“And you don’t want to confront her either” Scott supplied, “but you’ve caught feelings”.

 

Stiles looked away from his friends, instead gazing down at his hands that were resting on the table in front of him. “I doubt she would have caught feelings for me”.

 

“Well if she kissed you there has to be something there” Scott shrugged, “I don’t think she sounds like the type to just kiss people, even as a rebound”.

 

“I hope not”. 

 

……….

 

Lydia was walking back to her hotel room with Allison next to her. She hadn’t said a word since they’d left the interviews, and she’d said goodbye for now to her cast mates. Not even to Allison. But that was something that was becoming more and more common and however much it unsettled her, Allison never seemed to be offended by it. She seemed worried, yes, but she respected that Lydia needed her space. Lydia knew she was very lucky to have a friend like Allison. They stopped once they reached the doors to their hotel rooms. Allison was about to turn the lock of her door when Lydia spoke.    
  


“Allison” she said, abruptly shattering the silence that surrounded them, “can we … talk for a bit?”.

 

Allison nodded, smiled just the faintest bit before following Lydia into her hotel room. Lydia took a seat of the couch and Allison pinched the chair in front of the vanity so she could sit facing her friend. 

 

“I hope this is about Stiles” Allison said.

 

“I’ve found that lately it’s always about Stiles” Lydia replied, not really looking at Allison but passed her. “But it’s also about Jackson” she added.

 

“I’m honestly glad that you’re finally talking to me about this. I’ve been going a little crazy with all this radio silence”.

 

“I don’t mean to not talk to you” Lydia muttered, choosing to stare down at her hands this time, “but everything’s started to become really complicated and I haven’t been able to find the words yet”.

 

“I know. It’s ok” Allison replied, moving to sit next to Lydia and sliding her arm reassuringly around her. 

 

“I can’t stop thinking about either of them” Lydia started. “About what I thought Jackson was and what he turned out to be. And what Stiles is”.

 

Allison didn’t say anything, instead waited until Lydia had found the words for what she wanted to say next. 


	11. Take Me Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading this <3 Here's the next chapter!  
> Chapter song: Take Me Home by Jess Glynne

_ “You rationalise my darkest thoughts/Yeah, you set them free”  _

 

“I know that it’s cruel to say that I’ve been thinking about Jackson” Lydia started again after a moment. “But all of this started with him, I guess. It’s almost like I’ve come out of a trance. I don’t really remember what it was like to be me before Jackson, but I want to know”.

 

“And Stiles feels real to you?” Allison asked.

 

Lydia nodded absently, “He’s been kind to me in ways that Jackson never was”.

 

“I’m not really surprised considering that Jackson wasn’t the epitome of the perfect man” Allison smirked.

 

“You always knew who he really was. I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you” Lydia muttered, she’d begun twisting and untwisting her hands in her lap. Allison always seemed to know what was best for her, even when she didn’t see it for herself. She just wished that she could have seen it earlier, like Allison had. But, she wondered, if it hadn’t taken this long then maybe she wouldn’t have met Stiles. And even though it was paining her right now, she wouldn’t switch him for anyone. 

 

“Lydia, I don’t want you to blame yourself for not seeing what I saw. Jackson was important to you, and he always will be. But he doesn’t have to be a part of your life anymore, and if you feel like you want to you can move onto better things. It doesn’t have to be right now, or ever, but it can be whenever you’re ready” Allison smiled reassuringly, even though Lydia wasn’t looking at her.

 

“I doubt that’s something that Stiles would ever want” Lydia laughed humorlessly. 

 

Allison’s smile turned into a smirk, “I’m not so sure about that”.

 

Lydia’s head snapped up, her eyes locking with Allison’s. “What do you know?” she asked.

 

Allison laughed, “What makes you think that I know something?”.

 

“Because I know  _ you,  _ Allison. And I know that smirk”.

 

Allison shook her head, smiling to herself. “You’re the one that kissed him. Did he kiss you back?”.

 

Lydia was struck by that. She thought for a moment, though it was something that seemed to always be on her mind it was something that she’d tried to keep herself from thinking about. Maybe that was out of embarrassment or just because she didn’t want to over analyse what had happened. “Yes” she replied.

 

Allison beamed. “See?”.

 

“I don’t think that means anything. It was probably out of shock”. Lydia thought about the way Stiles had wrapped his arms around her, as if attempting to pull her closer. Her heart stuttered. If it was out of shock then Stiles definitely knew how to handle himself in that kind of situation. 

 

“It means something” Allison replied, still beaming.

 

“You’ve  _ talked  _ to him about it” Lydia realised. Yes, she had known that smirk. It was more of a knowing smirk than she had originally thought. “Why didn’t you tell me?”.

 

“Stylist-stylee confidentiality agreement” she shrugged.

 

“Allison, you’re the worst”.

 

“You love me”.

 

“That’s beside the point”.

 

“Ok, so he might have come to my hotel room after the two of you kissed. Obviously he needed some of my expert advice” Allison laughed when she saw the shock on Lydia’s face. “This wasn’t something I was intentionally keeping from you” she added.

 

“What did he say?” Lydia muttered, her eyes not leaving Allison’s face, practically scanning her for any information. 

 

“I can’t tell you details, but you should definitely talk to him about it”.

 

“How could you betray me like this?” Lydia gaped.

 

“Lydia, this isn’t a conversation you need to be having with me. You need to have it with, Stiles”.

 

“Allison, is it going to be worth it?” Lydia asked, her eyes burning into her friend’s.

 

“Do you feel that it would be?” Allison asked in response.

 

This was all so fragile. She could confess to Stiles that she had feelings for him, and regardless of if he felt anything in return he would eventually be tossed to the side by her team. As if he was somehow disposable, but he never would be to her. Stiles was slowly helping her find herself again, even if he didn’t realise it. Or even if she didn’t really realise it herself. She wanted to be around him constantly, he made her feel completely at ease and safe. Was it worth it to even go through this at all if it would all be torn apart anyway? Was it worth it to feel so strongly for someone that she knew would have to leave eventually? In a few months at the most. She felt as if she was being torn apart. She looked up at Allison and instantly recognised the worry in her friend’s eyes that had become such a constant. “Allison, I don’t know” she replied finally.

 

“Take your time with this, Lydia. If you find that it is, then maybe it’s worth having that conversation”.

 

They didn’t say much after that. Maybe Lydia didn’t say as much as she had wanted to initially, but she had a lot more to think about now. A lot more serious things than she hadn’t had before. Lydia had to find the courage within herself to figure this all out, and she knew that she could talk it out more with Allison if she felt that she needed to. But she was starting to realise that this was something that only she could do for herself. And it would be the most nerve-wracking thing she’d ever done. 

 

……….

 

When Stiles opened the door the next morning it was to a considerably less cheery than usual Allison. She didn’t say anything to him before making her way into his room and towards his suitcase. He wasn’t sure why there was a sudden awkward air within the room. He wasn’t aware that he’d done anything wrong. Maybe she was just a little more tired than usual. She was a person after all. 

 

“Is something wrong?” he asked anyway, because if there was he would rather that he be told instead of being kept in the dark. 

 

Allison sighed quietly and paused, sitting back on her heels and looking up at him. “There’s a lot of complicated things happening right now, Stiles” she said.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”.

 

Allison shook her head and looked down again, seemingly trying to focus on her job but not succeeding. “Lydia kissed you … and the two of you haven’t spoken about that yet … and that’s a problem” she said slowly.

 

“Look, I don’t want to be some kind of rebound for her” Stiles protested, throwing his hands up in surrender. That was the conclusion that he’d forced himself to come to, regardless of what Scott and Isaac had been telling him. Lydia kissed him in a moment of weakness. She obviously missed and possibly still loved Jackson, and of course she would since he had been such a big part of her life. And anyway, Stiles would never be worthy enough for her. He just had to hang around for a few weeks or a month, or however long and then he would be gone from her life and she could continue as normal. Regardless of how much it hurt him to think like that. 

 

Allison stood up, a bundle of clothes in her hands. “Stiles, if you think that Lydia thinks of you in that way then you’re kidding yourself” she said, before tossing the clothes at him and making her way to the door. “And don’t forget to shower” she added, and exited the apartment. 

 

Maybe Stiles was kidding himself, but wasn’t that the whole point of this trip? He wasn’t an actor, he never would be and yet here he was, having to do just that. All of this was supposed to be fabricated, he wasn’t supposed to catch feelings like this. But he couldn’t back out, he was too far into this. And honestly he didn’t want to. As distant as he would have to become when he was around Lydia, he would still prefer to be in her presence. Stiles doubted that a shower would help wash away all his worries, but it was worth a shot. 

 

……….

 

Lydia was sitting in the normal morning meeting. She tried paying attention to Kira but her brain didn’t want to focus. And Stiles was sitting next to her, and she was very aware of that fact. He hadn’t so much as looked at her though and for some reason that only made her more aware of his presence. As if he somehow had an aura that constantly crashed into her. 

 

“Lydia, are you listening to me?” Kira asked.

 

Lydia’s head snapped up. “I’m sorry” she breathed in response.

 

“Lydia, these meetings are purely for your benefit”.

 

“I know”.

 

Kira sighed, “You have an interview and then we head to the airport to catch our next flight. Do you think you can handle that?”.

 

Lydia nodded profusely. “I won’t let you down” she said, even though it felt like she was constantly doing just that. 

 

Allison’s phone started ringing, breaking the heavy silence that had encased the room. “Sorry, it’s my dad” she muttered, and quickly left the room.

 

“Lydia” Kira said, letting go of her clipboard and leaning across the table to take Lydia’s hands in hers. “I know this is all overwhelming but I know that you can do this. Your schedule is clear for tomorrow so once we get off that flight you’ll have some time to yourself”.

 

“Thank you” Lydia muttered, squeezing Kira’s hands before she pulled away. 

 

“If you need anything then just let me know” she continued before excusing herself.

And once again it was just her and Stiles left in the room. For some reason Lydia was incredibly shaky. She wasn’t sure if that was because of how hyper aware she was of him or because for some reason she’d started feeling incredibly nervous as soon as they were in the same vicinity. She couldn’t even tell if he noticed because they hadn’t looked at each other all morning. Part of her was grateful for that because for some reason she didn’t want him to see her like this. 

 

“Stiles” she half-whispered, terrified of breaking the silence. 

 

“Yeah?” he muttered, still not looking at her. 

 

“Um” she hadn’t really thought this far ahead. Her mind still a jumble of words that she couldn’t seem to untangle. She felt like she had so much to say to him, and yet nothing at all seemed to come to the surface. “Maybe we should - hang out tomorrow” she said. She saw him look up at her out of the corner of her eye.

 

“On your day off?” he asked.

 

Lydia sucked up all the courage she had and met his gaze. “We still have a job to do” she replied, even if part of her wished it wasn’t just a job.

 

“Yeah” he paused, “I should … go”.

 

Lydia had never felt this alone in her life. At least, that’s what it felt like in this moment. It wasn’t because she was the only one left in the room, but more so because she felt isolated from everyone. Even Stiles was pulling away from her. She needed to talk to Allison, but she had to prepare for that interview. Fortunately she was aware that the two of them were great at multi-tasking. 

 

……….

 

Stiles felt sick. That was the easiest way to describe it. Actually, physically sick. If he wasn’t sure of it already then he was sure now. The kiss was a mistake and Lydia regretted it more than anything. It was just a job to her now. Sure, she had looked incredibly uncomfortable, but she was probably just embarrassed or something like that. There was no logical reason why he should be feeling the way he was, so maybe he just needed to stop feeling. But Stiles wasn’t stupid, he knew that was impossible, that’s why he had to distance himself from Lydia. But they still had their “job” to do, so that wasn’t really a viable option. He couldn’t avoid her in any way - not that he wanted to - so he was stuck in this little cycle of seeing her and feeling gross about it. Not about her specifically, but about himself and these feelings that had forced themselves inside of him. 

 

Maybe locking himself in his room until they had to leave for the flight would be a good thing. Leaving himself alone with his thoughts would be the downfall, but he should probably start working on that article anyway. No matter how difficult it would be for him to write at this point. That was his  _ job  _ that he had to do.

 

……….

 

Lydia made her way down the twisting corridors and knocked on Allison’s door. Time seemed slower than usual, and she knew that that wouldn’t feel the best when she was tackling that interview. She just hoped that she could pull herself together to not seem as disconnected to the world as she did. Allison opened the door a fraction of a minute later, but it felt so much longer.

 

“Need to talk again?” she asked.

 

Lydia nodded. “Interview” she sighed.

 

Allison nodded, and the girls made their way back to Lydia’s room. Allison started going through Lydia’s clothes quietly while a million thoughts stewed in Lydia’s head. 

 

“I think I fucked up” Lydia muttered finally.

 

“How so?” Allison asked, still focused on the clothing. 

 

“I asked him to hang out tomorrow and said it was because we had a job to do”.

 

Allison spun on her heel, looking at her best friend in surprise. “You didn’t” she replied, thinking about Stiles’ comments of being a rebound. “Lydia, this doesn’t really help things”.

 

“I’m aware” she sighed, “I don’t know why I said it”. 

 

“Tomorrow’s going to be awkward”.

 

“And the flight” Lydia added.

 

“Touche”. Allison paused for a moment and then went to sit next to Lydia. She took Lydia’s hand in hers gently and squeezed. “Lydia, you really need to talk to him.  _ Really  _ talk to him. No more of these broken thoughts and half-sentences”.

 

Lydia nodded slowly, “I still don’t have the words”.

 

“Well you have a two hour flight to think of them!” Allison smirked.

 

“I hate you” she replied, but she was smiling.

 

“You can sit next to me this time if it makes it easier” Allison offered.

“Thank you” Lydia smiled. “I hope that doesn’t betray Stiles” she added.

 

“Stiles can handle himself” Allison returned her smiled. At least, she hoped he could. He was as much of a mess right now as Lydia was. 

 

……….

 

Allison was curled up in her room reading one of her favourite books to pass the time before the flight. Lydia was at her interview so she had about an hour or so to kill before they all jetted off again. She was already all packed and prepared to leave, but she wasn’t minding having some time to herself. With everything that was happening she felt it necessary that she had some down time to try and push all her thoughts and worries out of her own head. And reading was the best way to do that. Allison’s peace of only broken when there was a hesitant knock on her door. She got up, placing her book down and made her way over to the open. She wasn’t entirely surprised when Stiles was standing on the other side. 

 

“Scott’s at work so he’s not answering his phone and Isaac’s at work and I don’t think I can really  _ talk  _ to him yet anyway. So you’re the only person I have to talk to” he said, not really looking at her but passed her shoulder.

 

“I do love being second choice” she smirked.

 

“Allison, please” he met her eyes.

 

“Stiles, I’m not that much of a jerk, come in” she pulled the door open and he walked in and sat down at the exact same spot he has when this had happened last time.

 

She pulled the chair away from her dressing table, spun it and sat down, facing him and looking at him expectantly. 

 

“You know Lydia” he started.

 

“I would hope so” she replied, unable to help herself.

 

Stiles just rolled his eyes in response. “Is this really a job to her?” he asked.

 

It was very clear to her that everything Lydia said to him plagued his mind at all times. “Do you want me to be honest with you, Stiles?” she asked.

 

“That would be preferred”.

 

“No” she said simply, “It’s not a job to Lydia”.

 

“But what other reason would she have to want to be around me?” he muttered.

 

Allison sighed. She got up and sat next to him, willing him to look up at her. “Stiles, you see yourself as being a lot less worthy than she does” she said seriously.

 

“This whole situation is just really uncomfortable” he shrugged, still not looking at her.

 

“ _ Talk  _ to her, Stiles” she urged.

 

“I don’t have the words” he muttered.

 

“Lydia’s going to sit next to me on the flight. Do you think two hours is enough time for you to find some words?” she asked. “You are a writer, aren’t you supposed to be good with them?” she smirked.

 

Stiles shook his head, “I’m good at writing them, not at speaking them”.

 

“I think you’ve been doing ok”.

 

“Thanks” he laughed.

 

“Stiles” Allison sighed, placed her hand on his shoulder, “You just need to find some courage in yourself”.

 

“And say what? ‘Lydia I think I’ve caught feelings for you and even though this is all supposed to be fake I wish it wasn’t’?”. 

 

“Exactly. See? You do have words”.

 

“I can’t tell her that” he retorted.

 

“Figure out how you want to say it, Stiles. It’s something that needs to be said. Maybe not like that but just  _ talk  _ to her. You guys never speak to each other”.

 

“We spoke this morning” he defended.

 

Allison shook her head. “You don’t  _ really  _ talk ok, better?”.

 

Stiles nodded. “I know what you meant. I just -”

 

“I know” Allison laughed. “You’re so high strung, Stiles. Maybe you just need to relax a little. Should I get Kira to look into the massage facilities at the next hotel?” she laughed.

 

“I don’t think so” he moved away from her. “Kira works hard enough as it is”.

 

“I’m just joking Stiles” she smiled.

 

He tried to return her smile. “I’ll try and calm down on the flight” he offered.

 

“Good”.


	12. Love Like This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! There's quite a fair bit in this chapter so I'm not quite sure what to summarise. I hope you all like it!  
> Chapter title song: Love Like This by Kodaline

_ “You light up my cold heart/ It feels right in the sun” _

 

Stiles knew that sitting next to Kira wouldn’t be so bad. Most of the time she was busy organising something or another for when they arrived at their destination but she was a nice presence to have next to him. They didn’t have any deep conversations, it was mainly just small talk, but that was perfect for him. It gave Stiles the brain space to think of words to say to Lydia. And he was trying to figure out why he had so many things to say to her, and yet so little at the same time. There were no words that seemed right for him to use, but he wanted to talk to her so badly. Not even about this, just in general. He missed her. Just being around her without feeling uncomfortable or as if the air between them wasn’t clear. And even though Kira was fine to sit next to, he missed the feeling of Lydia’s hand on his whenever they encountered some turbulence. 

 

……….

 

“I have bad news” Kira started, standing up and looking around at everyone on the plane just after they’d landed. “The press have found us”. 

 

There was a collective groan in response.

 

“I know, I know. I tried but some of the other cast members have already arrived so I guess they just caught on”.

 

“Not your fault” Allison said, standing up. “Time to put on some damn good masks”.

 

Lydia stood up and walked across to where Stiles was throwing his bag over his shoulder. “Can I walk next to you?” she asked him.

 

“Lydia, you can walk wherever you like” he replied, confused.

 

“No, I mean, to keep up appearances” she muttered.

 

“Oh”.

 

“Not that I don’t want to walk next to you anyway -”

 

“I know” he cut her off, smiled faintly. “It’s no problem”.

 

“Ready team!?” Allison called from the front of the plane. 

 

Stiles and Lydia looked at each other and nodded in solidarity. 

 

“Ready!” Lydia called back. 

 

Lydia was almost too scared to look for the cameras. She knew they were there, could feel them watching her, but she didn’t want to look for them. They would be in her face as soon as she’d made it across the tarmac and into the airport itself. She was almost afraid of it. She’d walked through what felt like thousands of mobs of press, and it was almost like she could never really get that kind of claustrophobia out of her system. But Stiles was helping, he was so full of nervous energy that was almost laughable. 

 

“So, how far along are we in this?” he was saying. “I mean, in this as in in the fake everything. Are we together yet or …? I guess what I’m really asking is should I be holding your hand right now? Not like, not like in a romantic way, just to keep up appearances. You know, because of the press. Because there’s press right now … inside the airport … there’s press” his words seemed to fail him.

 

Lydia couldn’t help but laugh. She looked over and caught his eye, beaming. “I think you’re safe from any kind of fake romantic gestures for the moment” she said. “We’re only in the second city, we have to play this out a bit”.

 

“Right. Of course. That makes … perfect sense. You’re so smart, Lydia”.

 

“Stiles, I think you need to calm down”.

 

“Don’t worry, he’ll sombre right up the second we walk through those doors” Allison muttered, suddenly appearing next to them. 

 

Lydia shuddered. 

 

“I’ve never understood the idea of crowding around someone until they can’t breathe” Stiles muttered.

 

“It’s not fun” Lydia replied. 

 

“Stilinski, you’re in for a ride” Allison added. “Are you usually one of the jerks with the cameras?” she asked.

 

“No, fortunately my career hasn’t hit rock bottom yet”. 

 

They laughed, the nerves settling in again. Allison broke off from the two of them, making her way to stand next to Kira. They started speaking in soft voices. Or at least, Lydia had started to tune everyone out. That was the only way she knew how to push through these kinds of moments. 

 

“Lydia” she heard Stiles’ voice and turned her attention to him, “I’ll be right next to you”.

 

“Thank you” she breathed, trying to calm her resurfacing anxiety. It was even worse than the last time she had to do this. She guessed that maybe because her name had been strung along so much in the media of late that there might have been more interest in her. Or maybe it was because she’d gotten that role in Scarlet Era. Suddenly she was someone that needed to be watched and reported on constantly at all times. The thought wasn’t really helping her anxiety. She could feel as her breath started to shorten, her chest tightening as she struggled to pull air into her lungs. Everything around her seemed to be turning into white noise. She zoned out all of the paparazzi screaming different questions at her. She tuned out of where she was and just tried to keep her breathing calm. She didn’t want a headline to say that she lost her shit at the airport. She felt a gentle hand on her back, confused she turned to see Stiles looking at her, obvious concern in his eyes. 

 

When they finally piled into the car, Lydia found that she still couldn’t breathe. Her throat was closing up and she was gasping her breath. Her eyes had started to tear up in response. 

 

“Lydia” she heard Allison’s voice, it sounded so far off. “You remember how to deal with this, ok? Deep slow breaths”.

 

The words ‘panic attack’ flashed through her mind. It had been so long since she’d had one, she’d almost forgotten how much it hurt to feel her cheat burn. She closed her eyes and tried to will the air into her lungs but that didn’t seem to help either. 

 

“Lydia, look at me”.

 

Her eyes snapped open and locked with Stiles’. He took her hand and gently placed it on his chest, she could feel his steady heartbeat.

 

“You need to ground yourself” he said matter-of-factly. “Look around you and tell me five things you can see”.

 

Somewhere in the back of her mind Lydia remembered this technique. It used to work for her, when she had panic attacks often at college. “You” she started. She looked around her. “I can see Allison’s phone case” she muttered, trying to avoid Allison’s eyes. “Kira’s clipboard. Allison’s bag. The trees outside”.

 

“Good. What are four things you can feel?”. 

 

Her eyes snapped back to Stiles. “Your heart beat ... The seat ... My skirt ... The car moving”.

 

“Three things you can hear?’.

 

“Your voice … Cars ... Birds”.

 

“Two things you can smell?”.

 

“My perfume ...Something musky?”.

 

“That’s probably my cologne. One thing you can taste?”.

 

“The strawberries Allison and I had on the flight”.

 

“Are you feeling a little better?” he asked her.

 

Lydia didn’t remembered closing her eyes so she opened them and looked at him. She didn’t remember when her breathing had slowed back to normal, but she knew it would have been during counting. “Thank you” she said. 

 

She could feel three pairs of eyes on her. She looked over Stiles’ shoulder and saw Allison looking at her innocently. A mixture of concern, amusement and slight awe apparent on her face. Kira was looking at her over her shoulder in the passenger seat. “I’m ok now” she said to all of them. Her hand dropped from Stiles’ chest slowly, almost hesitantly, and she placed her hands in her laps neatly.

 

“Well next time anyone has a panic attack we all know who to send them to” Allison smirked. 

 

Stiles just shrugged in response. “I used to have them a lot when my mum died. That technique doesn’t help everyone but it’s my go to response”. 

 

“I’m sorry” Allison replied.

 

“You didn’t know”.

 

“When?” Lydia asked quietly. 

 

“When I was a kid” he said. “It’s ok” he added.

 

“I’m sorry” she echoed. 

 

“It’s ok” he repeated.

 

It went a little quiet after that. It wasn’t the uncomfortable the-air-isn’t-clear quiet that she was becoming sadly accustomed to when she was with Stiles. Maybe that was because the weren’t alone, but she was grateful nonetheless. It was a peaceful quiet, a comfortable quiet. A quiet between friends when the conversation breaks down on a road trip and you turn the music up instead until you all start to sing along. It was calm. And when Kira started up an innocent conversation it wasn’t unwelcome. A few words untangled their way from Lydia’s ball of thought: safe, happy, home.

 

……….

 

The hotel wasn’t unlike the last one but it was still way above what Stiles was used to. And thus he was in awe. Once they arrived they had to push through some more press, but Lydia kept up a solid front and he was a little proud of her. There were fans littered around that she promised to come back to. She just had to check in, and then she’d be back to take photos and sign things for them. Stiles didn’t have a lot of experience seeing celebrities with their fans. He wasn’t someone that worked on the ground, he was always just upstairs in the office staring at a computer screen for hours. He’d heard and reported on horror stories but this wasn’t something he got to experience first hand. And Lydia held herself so well. She was so kind to people that she knew devoted a lot of time and effort into supporting her. She knew that just seeing her for a second made their day but she wanted to put in the same amount of effort that they gave her. She wanted to give back. It wasn’t all that common these days, at least from what he’d had to report on to find someone as genuine as that. Everyone said that they loved their fans so much but he didn’t think that a lot of people acted on that.

 

“I’ll just put my things in my room and then head back down to see them” Lydia said. The four of them were in the hotel lift. Making their way up to their rooms.

 

“You’re really nice to them” Stiles replied. He knew it was a dumb thing to say, but he needed to acknowledge it. “I don’t think we see that often enough by people in the industry” he added.

 

“They do so much for me. It’s the least I can do to give them a few minutes of my time” she answered.

 

“Didn’t you hear, Stiles? Lydia is basically America’s sweetheart” Allison laughed. 

 

“I’ll take your word for it” he smirked.

 

“Allison you should come with me, they love you” Lydia turned to her best friend.

 

“Alright. I’ll dump my stuff too and we can head down. Would you like to accompany us, Stiles?”.

 

“I don’t think that’s really my place” he hesitated.

 

“Would it help with the crafty rouse?” Allison turned to Kira.

 

“Probably not. If he’s mentioned by someone play it off. Fans have cameras just as often” she replied.

 

“You know what you should do instead? Wander around the hotel or look for something fun to do tomorrow. Every city has some gems that have to be visited”.

 

“Possible date spots. Got it” he laughed.

 

“Be a tourist for a few hours”.

 

“Honestly, Allison, I think I’ll just call my dad. I haven’t spoken to him in a few days” Stiles shrugged. He hadn’t and he felt guilty for it. He’d barely even told his dad about this trip. 

 

……….

 

“You know earlier was a reminder of how little we actually know about Stiles” Allison was saying. The two of them were standing the the hotel lift again on their way down to meet with the waiting fans. “I mean, we make so many assumptions about people, you know? There’s always so much to learn”.

 

“What are you saying?” Lydia asked her.

 

“Nothing really. Just that there’s a lot more to him than I initially thought”.

 

“If you’re trying to convince me that Stiles is special then I already knew that”.

 

“I know” Allison smirked. “But I’m starting to see why he feels more like a real person to you”.

 

“Because he is one?” Lydia laughed.

 

“Well, yes”. The lift stilled and the doors opened. “You ready?”.

 

“Always” Lydia smiled, trying to seem like the happy person she needed to be in these kinds of moments. She didn’t want her fans to worry about her. The sounds of girls screaming filled her ears as she wandered over to the waiting fans. Lydia was grateful that they seemed to behaving themselves. She loved her fans, but sometimes they could be a little too much. And she wasn’t feeling 100% ready to deal with crazy girls, no matter how much they meant to her. 

 

“Hi” she smiled.

 

There was a small chorus of “hi”s in response. There were only about twenty or so girls there, which was a lot less than usual. There would be more tomorrow, once everyone realised where she was. These were probably the most “dedicated” fans, and by that she meant the ones that would probably stalk her. There were always a handful in every city she went to. They were a cause of worry for people in the industry, but these few girls seemed ok. 

 

Lydia was perfectly polite. She signed things and took selfies and smiled and answered any questions that they had. They were innocent questions, usually starting with a compliment. They liked her skirt and wanted to know where she bought it. They liked her last interview and wanted to know if she did as well. They’d sent her messages and wanted to her if she could reply to them. All innocent, almost mundane things that she was accustomed to. One girl even gave her a drawing that she’d done of her. A really lovely one. Allison did the same, answered questions and took selfies. Everything seemed to be going just fine until one girl spoke up.

 

“Are you and Jackson getting back together soon? I ship you two so hard” the girl said.

 

Lydia felt her resolve start to crumble around her. She hesitated in answering and she knew that that would make all the difference to this girl. “No” she replied honestly, “we’re not getting back together”.

 

“Are you sure? Because people break up  _ all the time - _ ” the girl continued.

 

“If Jackson has made anything clear, it’s that what we had was over. I’m in a better place now”.

 

“Does that mean you’re dating someone else?”.

 

“No”.

 

“ _ Are you sure _ ?”.

 

“I’m sorry guys but we really have to wrap this up” Allison was saying, but Lydia had tuned out. She hated the fact that even hearing his name brought back all of these feelings within her. “I’m really sorry. We have a meeting to get to but it was nice meeting you all”.

 

“It really was” Lydia muttered, “I’m sure I’ll see you all again soon” she smiled. Or at least, she tried to. 

 

When she made it back into the hotel lift with Allison she practically collapsed against the wall. For some reason she could feel another panic attack welling underneath. Allison grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. 

 

“Lydia, remember how strong you are. You’ve come so far already” she said.

 

“Why did they have to mention Jackson?’ she asked, barely above a whisper.

 

“Some nosy little brat just wanted to make you uncomfortable. That’s all it is” Allison reassured. 

 

“I’m sorry” Lydia breathed.

 

“You have nothing to be sorry for”.

 

Lydia nodded absently. 

 

“Lydia, it’s going to be ok. I promise this just takes time”. It felt like Allison was staring into her soul, but that was probably just because Allison knew her so well. Allison knew her soul, probably in ways that she didn’t. Allison knew what this felt like for her. 

 

The lift stilled and the doors open and Lydia wanted to feel less like she was drowning.

 

“You know what?” Allison smiled, letting go of Lydia when she felt that her friend could stand without her support. “We should go out tonight” they started down the corridor. “Even if it’s just the two of us. Or we could bring Kira and have a girls night out. I don’t know if she’d be able to come with how busy she is but I’m sure she can make an exception for tonight”.

 

“Where would be go?” Lydia asked. She liked the idea. She never got to spend time with anyone outside of their jobs. And when you’re in a new city it feels right to explore it. They hadn’t had a girls night out in what felt like forever. 

 

“I dunno. We could have dinner. Or we could go and dance. There’s endless possibilities I’m sure” Allison shrugged.

 

A thought suddenly occurred to Lydia, “What about Stiles?”.

 

“Destroys the purpose of a girl’s night out but we can invite him if you like” Allison smiled. 

 

“Let me think about it” Lydia offered.

 

“You can think about it while we both find something to go”. Allison stopped, knocked on the door they knew belonged to Kira at the moment. 

 

When Kira pulled the door open she was on the phone. She held her finger up before Allison could speak. “Mum, I’ll call you back. Promise” she said into the phone before hanging up and sliding it back into her pocket. “Hey”.

 

“We’re planning a girl’s night out and we want you to come” Allison beamed. 

 

“I don’t even remember the last time we had one of those” Kira laughed. “I’m in, but I might have to borrow some of your clothes”.

 

“Done. I’ll pick something”.

 

“Allison-”.

 

“I’m picking all of our outfits and that’s final. We’ll all match. It’ll be perfect” Allison continued.

 

“Alright” Kira smiled. “Are you ok, Lydia?” she added, noticing how sad her friend seemed to be.

 

“I’m ok. Went to see some fans downstairs, one of them brought up Jackson” Lydia shrugged, tried to make it seem like it was nothing.

 

“Oh, Lydia. I’m sorry” Kira consoled.

 

“I’m ok. Really”.

 

Kira nodded. “Well, Allison let me know when you’ve picked something out. I’ll call around and see what the best place to visit would be”.

 

“Perfect” Allison beamed.

 

Kira closed her door and then there were two.

 

“Do you want to ask Stiles while we’re here in the hallway?” Allison asked.

 

Sometimes Lydia was shocked by how well Allison  _ knew  _ her. It was like it escaped her mind on occasion that they’d been friends for the better part of their lives. “Do you think Kira will mind?”.

 

“I don’t mind!” a voice called from the other side of Kira’s door.

 

The girls couldn’t help but laugh at that.

 

“I’ll have to find him something to wear” Allison muttered, suddenly deep in thought.

 

Lydia shook her head, smiling fondly. “Well, I don’t pay you for nothing”.

 

“ _ You  _ don’t pay me” Allison retorted.

 

Lydia shrugged, “You get paid. That’s what matters”.

 

“Are you ok to ask him? I have a lot of planning to do in the next hour or so”.

 

Lydia nodded. “Make us look hot” she said.

 

“We do that on our own. Just need to amplify it” Allison smirked, turned on her heel and made her way to her hotel room.

 

Lydia took a deep breath and turned. She walked up to the door of Stiles’ hotel room and … hesitated. Pausing for a moment she thought about it. They hadn’t had a girls night in forever, but somehow the night wouldn’t be complete without Stiles. She wouldn’t feel comfortable enough without him there. She knew they’d be going to a club of some sort. She’d never had the best relationship with clubs. She used to go with Allison and Jackson. Jackson would always get wasted and then start dancing with other girls. Or worse, flirting with them. This would be the first time Lydia would be at a club without him in years. And there was some freedom in that. Lydia took another deep breath, knocked and waited.

 

When Stiles answered the door he was on his phone. He motioned to her apologetically. “Dad” he said into the phone. “Dad, I’m going to have to call you back ... I think Scott’s trying to get through to me. I promise I’ll call you again tomorrow … Love you too. Alright, bye” he hung up. “Sorry” he said to her.

 

“It’s ok” Lydia smiled. It went quiet and then she remembered why she’d knocked in the first place. “Oh” she started. “Um, Allison’s planning some sort of get together and ... we wanted to know if you’d want to … come … with us?”.

 

“Are you sure you want me there?” he asked. He seemed confused. 

 

“I wouldn’t have knocked if I didn’t” Lydia replied.

 

“I didn’t know if you’d prefer a girl’s night out or something”.

 

“I wanted to invite you” Lydia declared.

 

“Oh” he hesitated.

 

“Allison’s styling all of us if you’re worried about that”.

 

“I wasn’t, but I am now” he laughed.

 

“Sorry”.

 

“No. I was joking. I’ll go” he smiled. “If you want me there” he added.

 

“I think it would be nice to have everyone” Lydia shrugged. 

 

“Just let me know when Allison has everything ready”.

 

“You don’t have to be so worried. She’s good at what she does”.

 

Stiles laughed. “I know. I see her in practice everyday”.

 

“I’ll let her know to let you know … when she’s ready” Lydia trailed off. 

  
“I’ll wait in anticipation until then”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers but the next chapter is my favourite in the fic. I guess that gives you something to look forward to? I'll see you all soon <3


	13. Let's Get Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like this chapter. I don't know why I'm so fond of it but for some reason I am. I hope you guys like it as well!  
> Chapter title song: Let's Get Lost by Carly Rae Jepsen.

_ “Let’s get lost/ I don’t wanna let you go” _

 

Allison wasn’t just good at what she does. She was brilliant at it. If that hadn’t been obvious before, it definitely was now. Allison could work magic. They looked like the definition of the word “squad”. Stiles had never been this co-ordinated with anyone, except for his college graduation where everyone wore the same caps and gowns, but he didn’t really think that counted.

 

“You guys wanna hear a story about the last time I went to a club?” Stiles asked. They were all piled into the car and well on their way. Though traffic was a tragedy in any city it wouldn’t be safe for them to do what normal people do and catch the subway. 

 

“I’m more shocked that you’ve ever been to a club, Stilinski” Allison smirked.

 

“So in high school, Scott had a crush on one of the guys in his Chem class. Like a crazy obsessive crush, it was a little scary. So one night the two of us followed him into this club, because Scott was trying to ask him out and for some reason I agreed to go along with this. So, we sneak into this club through the back door because we’re still underage at this point and it’s full of men. It’s a gay club. And for some reason this doesn’t even register in Scott’s head he’s so focused on this guy for like twenty minutes. We’re sitting at the bar and he’s watching this guy dance and suddenly he turns to me and says ‘Stiles there’s a lot of guys in here’”.

 

“Oh my god” Lydia laughed.

 

“How precious” Kira smirked.

 

“So I say to him ‘do you know why that is, Scott?’ and it takes him a full five minutes to realise. I think that’s only because some guy at the other end of the bar had a drink sent to him”.

 

“I’ve never met Scott, but I love him” Allison beamed.

 

“About a year and a half later he was trying to plan a date with his girlfriend at the time. He wanted to go to a club. So he says to me ‘Stiles, remember that club we went to that one time?’. ‘Oh yeah Scott, you mean the gay one’”.

 

“Did he end up taking her?” she asked.

 

“No, but I think I saw his life flash through his eyes that day” Stiles laughed.

 

“Oh my god”.

 

The car pulled to a halt in front of the club. The four of them looked at each other. 

 

“There’s always press at places like this because there’s always celebrities” Kira said, her eyes on Lydia.

 

“I know” Lydia replied. “I’m not going to let them ruin my night”.

 

“That’s my girl!” Allison cheered. “Ready to break some hearts?”.

 

“Always” Lydia laughed.

 

……….

 

There were some camera flashes as they all made their way from the car to the club. It wasn’t anything that Lydia wasn’t used to and she found it easy to tune them out. She focused instead on the sound of Allison still laughing about the story of high school aged Scott and Stiles. It had been a while since Lydia had been in a club. She was once again struck by how loud it was. And of course the temperature increased a billion degrees once they entered. 

 

“I missed this!” Allison yelled over the music. Lydia made a mental note to make sure that she let Allison take her to clubs more often. Just for the sake of her enjoyment, she’d forgotten how much Allison loved to dance. 

 

Since this was a club that celebrities frequented often there was a designated VIP area that they could hide away in, but instead Lydia managed to grab them a table. It would be a little difficult to hold a conversation over the music but she wanted to be able keep an eye on Allison. Allison who’d already made her way over the bar and gotten drinks for everyone. Allison was 100% going to get smashed that night, but at least Lydia knew that she would be happy. She needed to let go, they’d all been so stressed lately. 

 

“We better keep an eye on her tonight” Kira said, practically speaking directly into her ear to be heard. 

 

“I know, but I’m happy she’s going to relax” Lydia replied.

 

“True”.

 

“Alright” Allison placed the four drinks on their table. “Stiles, I don’t know what you drink” she called “so I just guessed”.

 

“I don’t really drink” he replied. 

 

“One drink. And at least one dance”.

 

“I don’t really dance”.

 

“Promise me!”.

 

“Alright. Alright. But just one dance”.

 

“Yesss!!!!” Allison cheered. She took a seat next to Kira, her hands wrapped protectively around her drink. It didn’t take her long before she’d finished it and convinced Lydia to dance with her. Not that it took much convincing, even though Lydia didn’t frequent clubs all that much she loved to dance. Especially with Allison. 

 

……….

 

Stiles didn’t have many moments in his life when he was left alone with Kira, but even in those moments he found himself content. Well, content enough when he was at a club with loud music blaring in his ears and making any kind of conversation difficult. 

 

“She looks happy” he commented.

 

“Which one?” Kira replied, sliding closer to Stiles to make it easier to talk.

 

“Both of them”.

 

Kira smiled, looking at her two friends fondly. “Allison’s a big fan of dancing. This isn’t something we do often. So when we do she goes a little crazy”.

 

“She’s going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow”.

 

Kira laughed. “Well, yes. But if she’s happy now then it’s worth it. There’s been a lot of stress these past few months. Especially when Jackson showed his true colours. I mean, I knew he was trash and so did Allison, but having Lydia see it was heartbreaking. Not only for her, I mean”.

 

“I understand” Stiles replied somberly. 

 

“I know it must be hard for you to be thrown into all of this but I think that I should tell that she values you a lot. Lydia, I mean”.

 

Stiles paused, watched the two girls dancing. “Does she really?”.

 

“Stiles, I have no reason to lie to you”.

 

Stiles turned to look at Kira. She was right, she had no reason to lie. She’d known Lydia for years. They’d been friends for a long time so she  _ knew  _ her. “I value her as well” he replied.

 

“I know. I think she knows that too, deep down. She’s having a hard time right now, but you’re making it easier for her and I’m grateful to you for that”. 

 

“It’s nothing”.

 

“It’s a lot” Kira smiled. 

 

Lydia made her way over to them, taking her seat next to Stiles again. 

 

“Good warm up?” Kira asked her.

 

“What?”.

 

“Having fun!” she tried again.

 

Lydia laughed, nodded. “It’s been a while” she replied.

 

Stiles watched as Allison reached the table, another drink in her hand. “Maybe you should slow down” he said to her. 

 

“Stiles, I’m a big girl. I know how to drink responsibly” she laughed. 

 

“Can we get a few selfies in before Allison gets smashed?” Lydia laughed, pulling her phone out of her clutch. 

 

“Good idea!” Allison beamed. “Gotta keep that insta feed updated”.

 

Stiles and Kira shared an eye roll and the four of them moved in closer together so they could all be in the shot. 

 

“I forgot how shit club lighting was” Allison laughed.

 

“Filters can work magic” Kira replied.

 

“True”.

 

“Everybody smile!”.

 

About a dozen selfies, three consecutive instagram posts, too many “#squad” jokes, and almost an entire drink later Allison managed to convince Kira to dance with her. The two of them disappeared in the direction of the dance floor. Kira, not as hesitantly as would be expected. 

 

“Stiles” Lydia smiled, “we should probably take a few of just the two of us”.

 

“The rumour mill needs some more fuel” Stiles smirked.

 

“That, and it’ll give Allison something to look at tomorrow when tonight turns into a blur. To remind her of all the fun that was had”.

 

Stiles laughed. “Alright. You’re the expert”.

 

“You’re the photographer”.

 

“Hobbyist photographer. And I don’t shoot people” he defended.

 

“You should put your arm around me” Lydia said, quietly enough that she was almost drowned out by the music. 

 

Stiles did. “Better?” he asked.

 

“That way the photo doesn’t look awkward”. The sound of the music was starting to get drowned out by the sound of her heart beating in her ears.

 

“Can’t fault your logic on that”.

 

_ Snap. _

 

“If I kiss your cheek would that be weird?” Lydia asked.

 

“It’s your instagram” Stiles shrugged.

 

“It’s platonic enough to be normal but romantic enough to be skeptical”.

 

“Again, I can’t fault your logic”.

 

_ Snap. _

 

“That’s a cute one” Lydia smiled down at the screen. 

 

“One on my phone?”. Scott would kill him if he didn’t send him some photo evidence that this was happening. He would literally be a dead man tomorrow. 

 

“You two look so cute!” Allison’s voice yelled over the music. She’d returned from the dancefloor with Kira at her side. 

 

Stiles was grateful that it was pretty hot in here, because that would give him a legitimate reason to be considered blushing. 

 

“Lydia, round two?” she continued. 

 

Lydia laughed, but joined Allison on the dancefloor once again.

 

“I’m just going to get another drink” Kira said to him, before making her way over to the bar.

 

Stiles pulled up Scott’s name on his phone and sent the photo without so much as an explanation. He wasn’t expecting a reply but he got one straight away.

 

Scott:  _ “DUDE!!!!” _

 

_ “I’m at a club with Lydia and two of her friends”  _ Stiles replied, then attached a photo of the four of them for reference.

 

Scott:  _ “why am I not you” _

 

Scott:  _ “the one in black is hot” _

 

Scott:  _ “they’re all hot but wow” _

 

Stiles was a little startled when Kira returned to the table, sliding in next to him.

 

“Sorry” she smiled. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Texting Scott?” she added.

 

“He would kill me if I didn’t tell him what was happening before he read it in some kind of press” Stiles replied.

 

She laughed, “Understandable. I think I would feel the same way if I was him”.

 

_ “I’ll give you more details later”  _ he replied to Scott’s texts.

 

“I hope it doesn’t make him jealous” he turned his attention back to Kira. 

 

“I’m sure it doesn’t. He’ll probably be more in awe if anything”.

 

“I wouldn’t be surprised at that”.

 

……….

 

The rest of the night was a whirlwind of the girls moving back and and forth between the dancefloor and the table. And watching Allison get steadily drunker throughout the night. She was a happy drunk, which wasn’t really surprising and she functioned well enough that they weren’t too worried. They kept a steady eye on her. Stiles thought that maybe she’d forgotten that she’d made him promise to dance with her. Instead she switched between Lydia and Kira, or sometimes the three of them danced together. 

 

“Stiles!” Allison yelled over the music. It seemed like the drunker she got, the louder the music seemed to be to her ears. “It’s your turn!”.

 

Stiles should have known better. “I really don’t dance” he said to her.

 

“You promised!”.

 

“One dance, Stiles” Kira laughed. “That’s all it is”.

 

“You guys owe me for this” he said before getting up and joining Allison on the dancefloor. 

 

If there was one thing Stiles was 100% sure that he was  _ really  _ bad at. It was dancing. But by this point in the night everyone else on the floor was pretty drunk and no one would really notice. No one, that is, except for Lydia and Kira who had only had a maximum of two drinks in order to be sobre enough to keep an eye on Allison. Even over the music Stiles could hear them laughing. He would never live this down. It was like any college party he’d been to all over again. Stiles was a little surprised when Lydia appeared next to him. 

 

“You look like you’re struggling so I thought I’d come and join you two to make it less awkward!” she said. 

 

“Yessss!” Allison laughed. 

 

They lasted for the better part of another song before the DJ started playing a drastically different song. 

 

“It’s getting late which means it’s getting closer to  _ lurve  _ time” the DJ called, as a much slower song started playing. 

 

Allison excused herself and went to join Kira at the table. Stiles was left awkwardly standing with Lydia while the other dancers paired up and continued. 

 

“I know you didn’t promise me a dance but it seems like it somehow happened anyway” Lydia laughed. She moved closer to him and Stiles momentarily forgot how to breathe. “Pretend it’s senior prom” she beamed. 

 

“I didn’t go to prom” Stiles replied, but wrapped one arm around her waist and took hers with his other. 

 

“Why?”.

 

Stiles shrugged, “I didn’t have a date and Scott had one so I just told him to go ahead and enjoy himself. I don’t really dance so I don’t think there would have been a point in going”.

 

“I don’t think it’s all about the dancing. I think it’s supposed to be about spending time with people you’ll never really see again” Lydia replied. “And you’re better at slow dancing than you are at actual dancing”.

 

“Thanks” he laughed. “The truth is my girlfriend at the time broke up with me a week before prom. She already had another date so I didn’t really feel like going”.

 

“Stiles, I’m sorry” Lydia muttered.

 

“It’s not your fault. I mean, I think it was for the best anyway” he shrugged again. “I haven’t really told anyone that since. Not one of my most shining moments in life”.

 

The music changed back to the usual loud, heaviness that is dance music and they pulled away from each other. Allison bounced up to them again.

 

“One more dance Lydia?!” she beamed. Stiles was shocked that she even had a dance left in her.

 

“Only one” Lydia laughed.

 

Stiles made his way back to the table and took his spot next to Kira.

 

She opened her mouth to say something but he interjected before she could speak.

 

“I know, I’m a terrible dancer. It’s plagued me since college. It’s my biggest flaw”.

 

Kira laughed and held her hands up in surrender. “All I was going to say is that was sweet” she replied, “But I see I’ve hit a nerve”.

 

“Sorry” he apologised quickly. “College parties have made dancing a tough subject”.

 

“Understandable when you dance like that”.

 

Stiles glared at her and she laughed.

 

“We’re going to head off after this dance. I hope that’s ok. Even though it’s a day off tomorrow we probably shouldn’t overstay our welcome”.

 

“I guess you’d want to avoid as many disastrous headlines as possible”.

 

Kira nodded. “Exactly”.

 

……….

 

Leaving the club and making their way back to the hotel was … interesting to say the least. There was still press hanging around but that wasn’t the interesting part. What was interesting was that as soon as Allison had made it from the club to the car she seemed to deflate into the regular drunk state of everyone else who’d ever been drunk. She was basically dead weight from that point. Which made trying to get her up to her room incredibly exciting. If not absolutely laughable. Kira managed to get Allison’s arm around her shoulder, propping her up with one arm with Lydia one her other side doing the same. Stiles realised that maybe this was something they were used to, since it seemed to have happened before. Once they reached Allison’s room she was practically asleep. 

 

“I’ve got it from here” Kira smiled. Lydia managed to get out from under Allison’s arm and helped Kira open Allison’s door before she lead Allison inside. Lydia laughed into the now quiet hallway. 

 

She turned to face Stiles who looked nothing less than completely amused. “This used to happen a fair bit in college” she explained, walking over to him. “Allison is one of the most hard working people I know, but I think sometimes college got the better of her”.

 

“It definitely seems like it would have been an exciting four years to be a part of” Stiles smirked.

 

Lydia stepped closer to him, so that she was right in front of him. “Thank you for coming tonight. I know it might have not been very fun for you but I’m really … glad that you came” she smiled.

 

“I actually enjoyed myself believe it or not”.

 

“I did too”. 

 

They paused for a minute. The hallway seemed very silent in comparison to the loudness of the club.

 

“Uh, Lydia -”.

 

They were interrupted by the sound of a door opening. Kira was sneaking out from Allison’s room and across to hers. “Sorry” she muttered. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Goodnight” she added.

 

“Sleep well” Lydia smiled. “Thank you for coming tonight”.

 

“I’m allowed to live on occasion” she smirked. “Night, Stiles”.

 

“Goodnight” he replied, automatically.

 

Lydia turned back to face him, still smiling. She seemed more at ease than he’d ever seen her. “It’s late” she said. “We should probably get some sleep”.

 

“Yeah” he muttered. “Night”. 

 

“Goodnight, Stiles” she laughed. She hesitated for a moment before turning and making her way into her room. 

 

Stiles stood in the hallway for another minute before his body and mind caught up with each other and he made his way back into his room. The alarm clock next to his bed read 2:02 which is somewhat simultaneously earlier and later than he expected it to be. Stiles only really managed to take his shoes off before collapsing onto his bed. He was practically asleep already.

  
_ “I should have kissed her”  _ he sent to Scott. Then Stiles all but passed out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: I'm never been to a club before and I'm not a fan of alcohol so this was a lot of guesswork from what other people have told me haha. I hope it somehow worked regardless.  
> I'll see you all again soon <3


	14. Kind of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! So this will be the last update before Christmas. I hope you all have a good one if you celebrate it or just a good holiday season. I'm be away for about week following Christmas but I'll be back in early January with the new chapter, don't you worry. Anyways, I hope you all like this chapter!  
> Chapter title song: Kind of Love by Maala

_ “You’ve got the kind of love/That I’ve been dreaming of” _

Lydia wasn’t usually an early riser, but for some reason that changed whenever she had some kind of work to do. Like a press tour, or an acting gig. Though sometimes acting required early rising anyway. The point is that even though she’d gone to bed at 2 she was up and pretty much awake at 7:30. She didn’t even really need a coffee, though she made herself one anyway out of habit. After breakfast the next thing on her list was to make sure that Allison was ok. She wouldn’t be awake yet. Probably wouldn’t be awake for hours, but it was a habit she’d picked up in college. You always check on the drunk friend just to make sure they’re breathing. It hadn’t happened to Lydia, but she’d heard horror stories of people waking up to find they’re drunk friends weren’t doing all that well. When she opened her door she was surprised to see Kira there. Her hand was raised as if she about to knock but it dropped when Lydia pulled the door open. 

“Sorry” Kira muttered. 

“Morning” Lydia replied.

“Right. Morning” she smiled. 

“Is there something wrong?”.

Kira shook her head, “No, not at all. Can I come in?”.

“I was just going to check on Allison actually” Lydia muttered.

“I was just there. She’s fine, don’t worry”.

“Well in that case, you can come in” Lydia smiled, pulled the door open to let Kira in.

The girls made their way over to the couch in Lydia’s room. Lydia waited for Kira to speak but she seemed to be hesitating for some reason.

“I just wanted to apologise. I’m not sure if I interrupted something between you and Stiles last night” Kira said after a few moments of silence.

“Oh. No, you didn’t. There was nothing to interrupt we were just talking”.

“He didn’t kiss you?” Kira asked, shocked.

Lydia shook her head, “There’s nothing between me and Stiles”.

“There’s a lot between you and Stiles. I know I’m not available to talk as much as Allison is but I see things”.

Lydia looked down, avoided Kira’s eyes. 

“I’m sorry. That sounded harsher than I meant it to be”.

She shook her head. “No, it’s ok. I’m not trying to purposely keep things from you”.

“I know” Kira smiled. “I just want you to know that you can talk to me about things too. I mean, I find everything out from Allison anyone but -”.

“I know what you mean” Lydia laughed. “I’ll try to talk to you more”.

Kira rocked backwards slightly, snuggling into the couch a little more. Her hands seemed to be a little fidgety since she didn’t have her clipboard to hold. “So if he didn’t kiss you then what happened?”.

“Nothing, we just said goodnight”.

“Did you want him to kiss you?” she asked.

Lydia hesitated for a moment. “Yes” she replied.

“But you didn’t kiss him?”.

“No, I just … I don’t know. It didn’t feel right” Lydia shrugged. 

Kira was quiet for a moment, calculating the best response to this situation. “Have the two of you talked about the last time you kissed yet?” she asked.

Lydia shook her head.

“At all?”.

She shook her head again.

“You two are hopeless” Kira laughed.

“I don’t know how to bring it up without it being awkward” Lydia confessed. “I don’t know how to talk to him”.

Kira smiled at her friend fondly, took Lydia’s hands in hers. “Lydia, you do know how to talk to him. You talk to him everyday. It’s the same thing. The same kind of words, just in a different order”. 

“Kira, is it worth the effort?” Lydia caved, asking her the same question she asked Allison. Even if she would get the same answer.

“Do you think it’s worth it?”. And she did.

Lydia looked up at Kira, saw how earnest she was being. She nodded.

“Then talk to him about it. You’ve had a few days to think of the words. I’m sure you can manage”.

“We’re supposed to be spending some time together today. To … keep up appearances” Lydia muttered, hating the way the words sounded. Stiles meant more to her than some kind of front that she needed to put in place. He was more to her than the rouse that had been constructed by her team. So much more.

“If you want my insider opinion” Kira, smiled, let go of Lydia’s hands and leaned back again, smug. “I was talking to him while you were dancing with Allison last night”.

“And?” Lydia asked, sounding like a schoolgirl grilling her friends for gossip on her first crush.

“And there’s more between you than you’re trying to convince yourself there is”.

Lydia nodded. “Thank you, Kira” she smiled. “I’ll try and talk to him today”.

“I don’t think you’ll have to force it. I think it’ll just happen”. 

“We should probably check on Allison again” Lydia muttered, looked across at the time: 8:30. The two girls stood and made their way from one hotel room to the next.

……….

When Stiles woke up that morning and realised that the clock said 8:30 his first reaction was to panic, because both Allison and Kira were probably about to break his door down. But then he remembered it was a day off today. Allison was probably still sleeping off her hangover from the night before, anyway. The idea of having a whole day without really having anything that he  _ had  _ to do was a little strange. He hadn’t had a day like that since this whole thing started. Even before then he really only had the weekends to himself. It all felt strange now, in hindsight. 

Stiles was in the middle of making a coffee when there was a knock on his door. He looked over at the clock: 9:15. When he pulled the door open Kira was standing on the other side.

“I hope I didn’t wake you” she said.

Stiles shook his head. “Morning” he replied.

“Morning” she smiled. “Lydia wanted me to ask you if you were still on for today. She would have come herself but she’s a little busy helping Allison right now”.

“Holding her hair up as she gets over her hangover I’m assuming”.

“Exactly”.

“Tell her it’s still on if she wants it to be. She doesn’t have to spend her day off pretending to be someone she’s not” he shrugged.

“Lydia doesn’t pretend with you, Stiles” Kira said, turning serious. “She doesn’t spend time with you because she feels like has to. She invited you last night because she wanted to”.

“It’s taking my head some time to wrap around those kind of concepts” he replied, smiling sadly.

“When you see yourself as highly as everyone else does, let me know” Kira smiled. “I’ll tell Lydia that you’re still on for today” she added before excusing herself and making her way across the hallway, towards Allison’s room.

Stiles closed the door and leaned against it. He was an idiot, that much he knew. He needed to call Scott and talk this all out. But Scott was probably at work right now and even if he wasn’t he didn’t really know if he could find the words to explain what was happening right now. So Stiles slumped in front of his laptop and tried to lose himself in the news of the world. He hadn’t really been paying all that much attention to everything outside of the little bubble he’d found himself in. He came across a few articles about the night before. There was already speculation that he was dating Lydia so he guessed that they were doing a good job at stringing along the media. Most of the comments were seemingly supportive which was both confusing and intriguing to see. But part of him was grateful for that. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, opening the Instagram app that he rarely used and choosing a photo of the four of them from last night. He captioned it with “last night I remembered that I’m a terrible dancer” and posted it before he could change his mind. He guessed that sharing a few photos of what was happening would only enhance their case. He didn’t think it would hurt to actually have some good memories on his Instagram anyway. 

………. 

_ “And there’s more between you than you’re trying to convince yourself there is”. _

Kira’s words echoed in Lydia’s mind. She wanted so desperately for there to be something between her and Stiles that the thought of something  _ actually for real  _ happening almost made her sick. Not really physically sick, but because she’d tried to force herself into denying there was any possibility of happiness for her in that way for so long that the idea of something real and genuine, which was once so far away, becoming reality was unreal to her. She  _ wanted  _ something to happen between the two of them. Something romantic. A part of her felt guilty for that, Stiles was so pure and so real and she wanted to deserve him, but she was terrified of making something work when everything around her seemed to be crumbling instead. There was no reason for it to be sustainable when they only had a few months, at the most. But she wanted to try. 

Lydia made her way back to Allison’s hotel room. The door was left unlocked, they always did that when one of them was hungover. Another of the habits they’d picked up at college. The room was slightly dark, the curtains were pulled over the windows. Allison seemed to be doing just fine. She was curled up reading a book, though she looked like death itself. She looked up when Lydia entered.

“Hey” she smiled. 

“Hey” Lydia returned her smile. “Feeling ok?”.

“I’ve been better but it’s worth it” Allison shrugged.

“No better way to spend your day off?” Lydia laughed. 

“I don’t really plan on leaving this room”.

“You know, I hear the pool here is pretty great”.

“Ok, so I might consider leaving this room” Allison smirked. “What did you and Stiles plan for today?” she asked.

Lydia shook her head, “I haven’t seen him yet”.

“Lydia -”.

“I know. I know” Lydia interrupted, “I need to talk to him”.

“You’re the one that invited him” Allison reminded.

“I know that too” Lydia sighed, flopped down on the couch next to her best friend. “I don’t know what to say to him” she admitted.

“Ask him if he has any preferences. There’s a lot of things to do in any city. Google it, honestly” Allison suggested.

“This should be easier than it is”.

“Well, if you’re harbouring feelings for someone it gets messy”.

“I’m aware” Lydia groaned, dropped her head into her hands in defeat.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you like this in such a long time” Allison muttered. “I mean, college was a long time ago now wasn’t it?”.

“Now’s a weird time for you to get reminiscent” Lydia laughed, resurfacing.

“I know. The last time I saw you, sort of, like this was with -”.

“Jackson”.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought to up” Allison apologised.

“No it’s ok” Lydia muttered. She paused for a moment, toying with her words. “It feels different” she said.

“More real?”.

“Yes and no” Lydia shrugged. “Just different”.

Allison smiled fondly. “Honestly, I’m just glad you’re happy”.

“I think I am too”.

………. 

Stiles was aimlessly browsing through the tv channels when his phone vibrated loudly on the table in front of him. He’d almost forgotten that he’d texted Scott the night before. It wasn’t something that he would add to his list of life regrets and Scott’s response wasn’t surprising.

Scott:  _ CALL ME RIGHT NOW! _

Stiles flicked the tv off and picked up his phone, leaning back into the couch in preparation for whatever was to about to happen. He dialed Scott’s number and waited for the millisecond it took him to answer his phone.

_ “What do you mean you should have kissed her!?”. _

“Morning to you to, my best bud” Stiles smirked.

_ “Stiles!!!”. _

“Ok, ok. It was just a thought that I had” he muttered.

_ “You can’t just throw a bombshell like this on me. I feel like I’m out of the loop completely”  _ Scott’s voice dropped, suddenly appearing to be a little upset.

“I know that I haven’t been telling you everything that’s happening and I’m sorry about that -”.

_ “I forgive you. Now how were you even in a situation to be kissing her? Has she kissed you since she kissed you last time? What did I miss?”  _ Scott demanded.

Stiles sighed, “No we haven’t kissed since and before you ask me we still haven’t talked about it”.

_ “Still?”. _

“No”.

_ “Stiles!!!”. _

“I know”.

_ “Next time you disappear for a month you have to take me with you. You’re hopeless”  _ Scott laughed.

“Yes, and having you as my wingman would 100% help my case” Stiles smirked.

_ “Hey, I got you your last date didn’t I?”. _

“No, that was Isaac actually”.

Scott went silent for a moment. Stiles fought the urge to laugh.  _ “Well at least you got the girl that time” _ he said finally.

“Listen Scott, I don’t really know how to approach this” Stiles admitted. “I really don’t know how to talk to her”.

_ “You’ve talked to girls before” _ Scott consoled.  _ “Successfully on occasion”  _ he added

“Lydia’s different”.

Scott snorted with laughter.  _ “Why do you sound like some loser in a romantic comedy?” he asked. _

“I probably am one!” Stiles declared, “And I need your help with changing the situation”.

_ “Maybe I should call Isaac over here so we can both drill into you the necessary tactics needed” _ Stiles could even hear the smirk through the phone. He knew Scott too well.

“Mocking me isn’t helping” he defended. 

………. 

At about 1pm Lydia knocked on Stiles’ door. She was a lot shakier than usual but she was trying to play it off as much as she could. This was a completely normal thing to be doing. They were just going to hang out. Which was a completely normal thing that people did. That was all this was. But it was slowly occurring to her just how much Stiles meant to her, and that was complicating things just a little. She waited patiently for him to answer, time seeming to go even slower due to her nerves making her hyper aware.

When Stiles pulled the door open Lydia felt like she could finally relax. “Hi” he smiled at her.

“Hi” she smiled back. “Found anything interesting you want to explore?”.

“I honestly haven’t been looking that much. I just got off the phone with my dad” Stiles shrugged, apologetically.

“You talk to him often?” she asked. Stiles didn’t really talk about his family. She remembered what Allison said about there being so much to know about a person. 

“I try to. I’ve been a little distracted with this trip so I haven’t called him as often as I usually do. I think it’s hard for him sometimes without me at home”.

“Should I come in?” Lydia asked, she was suddenly very aware that anyone could overhear their conversation. And Stiles felt like something that she wanted to keep to herself. 

“Was there anywhere in particular you wanted to go to?” Stiles asked, standing aside to let her in. 

“I don’t really mind all that much. I guess it depends on how much exposure we want. Maybe I should have asked Kira for ideas this morning” Lydia shrugged. Even though it was a different room completely, she couldn’t help but remember the last two times she was in Stiles’ hotel room. For some reason a shiver went up her spine in response to her thoughts.

“Oh. How’s Allison doing? Still sleeping over her hangover?”. 

“She’s awake and functioning” Lydia smiled. “She recovers fairly quickly. I’m not sure if that’s because of college or because of her resilient nature”. 

“I guess I’m not surprised by that”.

“But I did do a little bit of Googling and like any city there truly is a lot that we could do. Like I said, it’s all about exposure but we could do lunch again even though it’s a little late for that now or we could do anything really. We could get coffee? We could ... “ Lydia was aware that she was rambling but she wasn’t sure if she could stop herself now that she’d started.

Stiles looked slightly amused. “Well, what’s something that you’ve always wanted to do?” he asked her.

“I heard there’s lots of good bookshops around and I don’t think I brought enough on this trip” she shrugged.

“More archaic Latin?” Stiles smirked.

“You remembered?”.

Stiles shrugged it off. “Not everyday you meet someone that speaks archaic Latin” he said.

“I’m not sure if books are your thing?” Lydia questioned.

“I don’t think I’ve finished a whole book since college” Stiles laughed. 

“Been writing more than you’ve been reading?” she joked.

“Yeah, basically”.

They paused for a moment, just smiled at each other.

“I’m assuming the indie book scene doesn’t stay open for long hours so maybe we should head out?” Stiles suggested.

“Probably a good idea” Lydia mused. “Let me just grab my bag from Allison’s room” she smiled and then quickly bounded from the room and made her way over to Allison’s.

“You feeling ok?” Allison asked, smiled when she saw how happy Lydia seemed to be.

“Going book hunting with Stiles” she said.

“Cutest date idea I’ve ever heard” Allison smirked.

“It’s not a date” Lydia rolled her eyes, grabbed her bag from Allison’s couch. 

“But you’re excited?”.

“Very much so”.

“Text me if you find any cool ones you’d think I’d like” Allison laughed as Lydia dashed to the door again. 

“You know I will!” Lydia beamed before closing the door behind her. 


	15. Come On Mess Me Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter song is Come On Mess Me Up by Cub Sport and if it's not one of your favourites then it will be when you listen to it, trust me.

_ “I want this, you know I want this, so come on mess me up” _

“You look happy” Stiles laughed, started walking to the elevator as Lydia fell into step next to him. 

“I just really love books” she shrugged, returned his smile. 

“For some reason that’s not something I expected from you”.

“Why’s that?”.

Stiles shrugged, “I guess it’s all about image isn’t it. People want you to be seen as a certain way so they paint you that way”.

“If you’re trying to say I’m not as shallow as you thought I would be I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment” Lydia laughed, as the elevator doors opened. 

“No, not that at all. I just … ok maybe it was a little that” Stiles muttered, looked away from her.

Lydia laughed. “Stiles, I know what you mean. If my team is trying to recreate my image a little then maybe the book nerdiness should be included in that” she said.

“I have no idea why they would leave any part of you out. You’re incredible”. 

They paused for a moment, something passing between them that they didn’t acknowledge. 

“I mean” Stiles coughed. “I don’t think you should have to lie about who you are” he corrected.

“I guess that’s just the way the industry is at the moment” Lydia shrugged. The elevator dinged and the doors opened again. She remembered that there would probably be a gathering of fans and possibly photographers outside. “There’s probably fans outside” she said, quietly as they entered the hotel lobby.

“We have all afternoon if you want to talk to them for a bit” Stiles smiled. 

“You don’t mind?”.

“Not at all”.

“They wait all day, it just seems fair” Lydia shrugged.

“If not a little creepy” Stiles smirked. 

Lydia laughed. “It is a little bit, isn’t it?”. 

The group of fans was even larger than the one that was there yesterday, but it was still manageable. When the two of them exited the building, Lydia heard a few of them scream her name. 

“Hi” she smiled at them.

“Hi!” they yelled back.

“Are you guys ok? You haven’t been waiting here all day have you” she asked as she approached them, pulling a sharpie out of her bag as she did. 

“I’ve been here since 9” one of them replied, handed her a little book to sign. 

She heard Stiles laugh from behind her as she signed it. He was keeping a careful distance. “Nine?” she asked, took a poster that another girl handed to her. “Have you eaten anything?”.

“Not really” one of them said as they handed her a magazine. 

“You guys need to take care of yourselves” she turned serious. “Make sure you guys are drinking water as well ok?”.

“We have been, a little” a girl handed her a DVD of the last film she’d been in. 

“Only a little?” she asked. 

The fans looked at each other absently but didn’t respond. 

“Does everyone here like pizza?” she asked, signing a few more things. 

“Yes!”.

“I’ll order some and get some sent here so you guys can eat something” she smiled. “I don’t have long but we can one big group photo, ok?”. 

There was a quick cheer and everyone scrambled for their phones.

“How about we take it on my phone and I’ll post it so you can all have it that way” she laughed. “Stiles, do you mind?” she turned to him. 

“Not at all” he shrugged, stepped forward as she pulled her phone out of her bag. 

“This is my friend, Stiles, everyone” she added to the fans. She wasn’t surprised that they were all looking at him in complete awe. Stiles was stunning. She handed him her phone and buried herself amongst the fans.

“Alright, big shot” Stiles smiled, took a few steps back so he could fit everyone in. “Smile!”.

“Thank you!” the fans said in unison as Lydia managed to pull away from them all.

“It was so nice meeting you all. I’ll post it now” she smiled, taking her phone as Stiles handed it to her. “I’ll see you guys later” she waved before starting to walk up the street, Stiles by her side. 

“That was incredibly nice of you” Stiles said, watched as Lydia quickly posted the image to her Twitter with the caption ‘so nice meeting you all. Pizza is on its way ’. 

Lydia quickly fired off a text to Kira asking her if she could order the pizzas for her, and charge it to her account. “I just wished they would take better care of themselves” she replied.

“You think if they were going to stand around all day they would organise for it” Stiles mused.

“They might not have realised what it entailed?” she suggested, put her phone back in her bag and looked up at him. 

“Possibly. Do you have any idea where we’re walking to?” he asked.

“There’s a coffee shop down the road, I thought we could go there first?”.

“It’s your image” he shrugged. 

Lydia smiled sadly and he instantly regretted the comment.

“Sorry”.

“No, you’re right” she said. “I hope this is an ok way to spend your day off?”.

“It is” he smiled.

Lydia looked up at him, returned his smile. “Thank you for doing this” she said.

“I’m genuinely intrigued. So is there like an underground book scene happening here or is it just a string of bookshops?” he asked.

“I honestly have no idea until we get there” Lydia laughed. “There’s some paparazzi across the road” she added, took a step closer to him instinctively.

“Probably shouldn’t let them ruin your avid search”.

“Ok if we skip the coffee shop?” Lydia asked. 

“Takeaway coffee it is”.

………. 

“They make you kind of shaky, don’t they?” Stiles asked. They were in the third bookshop and though Lydia had seemed ecstatic when they had started their trip her excitement was dwindling with the knowledge that there were paparazzi following her every move. 

“It’s like being watched all the time” Lydia said, trailing her fingers along the spine of a book absently. “It’s like I can never get away from them, but I have to face them”.

“I’m sorry that you have to feel that way” Stiles muttered.

“I’m sorry that you were thrown into this, Stiles” she looked up at him. “It’s really not fair for you”.

He shrugged, he didn’t mind really. As long as he was near her, he was happy. And that was dangerous within itself. “Gives me a lot of new perspective” he replied. Though he’d never sunk low enough in his career to be a paparazzo, he’d still always been behind the camera, so to speak. Behind a computer screen and away from any sort of action that celebrities had to experience. 

“I hope you’re enjoying yourself regardless” Lydia looked down again, picked up a book and skimmed the blurb briefly. Allison would probably like this one, she decided. 

“It’s interesting” Stiles smiled. “I don’t usually do this sort of thing”.

“I used to a lot in college. There were tons of old bookshops around. Allison and I started it to see if we could find any of our textbooks for cheap prices but then we just sort of fell in love with it” she shrugged, continued wandering around the shop. “The smell of books has always been comforting to me”.

Stiles was so in awe of her. There was so much to Lydia that he never expected, that no one ever saw because no one ever got to know her. And everyday he found himself lucky that he got to spend any kind of time with her, especially time like this. 

“I think it’s because my mum used to read to me a lot when I was little” Lydia continued. “We would dress up like princesses and she would read me a story almost every night. I think going to college and being away from home, the bookshops were the only way I could experience that again”. 

Stiles didn’t say anything in response. He just watched as she picked out a few more books, seeming to weigh them against each other as if she was limiting herself to two books per store. Even after all of this was forced to be over, he would never forget how incredible Lydia was. Just as a person. 

“We should probably keep going before I spend all my money in one store” Lydia looked over at him. 

“You’d have to buy the whole store for that wouldn’t you?” he joked.

“Haha” she rolled her eyes, before heading to the counter and paying for the two books in her hands. 

The next store they went into was the smallest of the lot. It was hidden down a small alleyway and was barely more than a room but there were bookcases surrounding every inch of the place and Lydia’s face lit up the second they entered. Stiles decided that this was definitely the best one so far.

“There was one exactly like this about two blocks away from campus” Lydia smiled, already skimming the book covers. “Oh, Kira would love this one” she beamed, pulled one free. 

“I think you’re collecting more books for your friends than for you” Stiles laughed as Lydia pulled at another book with her free hand. 

“Don’t you ever do that? Or doesn’t Scott have the time to read?” she asked, reading the blurb of the book in her hand.

“I don’t really see Scott all that much. He works a lot more than one person should” Stiles replied. 

“That’s sad” Lydia looked up at him.

Stiles shrugged. “Being a doctor is basically his passion. He’s wanted to be one forever, to follow in his mum’s footsteps”.

“That’s really sweet”.

“Scott’s all about giving back to the community”. 

“He sounds like a little ray of sunshine” she laughed.

“I think that about sums him up”.

………. 

They went into about two or three more shops after that. Lydia lit up at each they entered and Stiles thought that he would take her to every bookshop in the world if it meant he could see that look on her face forever. But that wasn’t really sustainable. They called a cab since they’d walk an incredible amount that day and were significantly tired. The sun was starting to set and that meant that the camera flashes were starting to become more obvious. Stiles was grateful when they arrived back at the hotel, solely because it meant that Lydia wouldn’t be as on edge. There were still fans outside the hotel, though only five this time. Lydia stayed for a few minutes with them to chat, sign things and take photos and then the two of them retreated to the elevator.

“Thank you for coming today” Lydia smiled, grateful for the silence of the hotel. 

“It was actually really fun” Stiles returned her smile. 

“Maybe next time you should pick up something for Scott so he can have a souvenir” she suggested.

“A souvenir of a place he’s never been to” Stiles smirked.

“You know, for sentimental value. So he knows that you’re thinking about him”.

The elevator doors opened on their floor and they exited the lift.

“He’d probably like that, actually” Stiles mused.

“Then we’ll definitely pick one up for him next time. Oh, and one for your dad too”.

Stiles laughed, stopped in front of the door to his hotel room. “Did you want to come in?” he asked, because he really didn’t want the day to end. 

Lydia smiled, and followed him into his room. Suddenly she felt just the slightly bit uncomfortable as she recalled that they hadn’t talked about the kiss yet. It wasn’t that they’d been avoiding the topic, it just had never come up but now she felt as if she had no choice but to bring it up. To be fair, Stiles looked just as uncomfortable as she felt. Lydia hesitated. She was so unsure how to word this, her mind was working too quickly for her to catch up. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, and yet nothing was making it’s way to the surface. 

“Stiles -” she said.

“Lydia -” he said at the same time.

They broke off, smiled at each other for a moment.

“You first” Lydia laughed. 

“You sure?”.

“The floor is yours” she joked.

“Uh, Lydia” Stiles shifted uncomfortably. 

Lydia realised that he must have been thinking the same thing that she was. Maybe he would be better at wording it than she could. He was a writer, after all. 

“Have you ever considered going out ….. With me, I mean …. I’m not doing this right am I?”.

Lydia’s heart had already been beating a mile a minute but stunted.  _ Did he just? _ “Stiles, what are you asking?”.

He was staring at the ground, too nervous to look at her. “I know this is supposed to be all fake, and I know that that’s something that you hate the idea of, but I’m not trying to ask you this in terms of that fakeness … I’m” he paused, shook his head to try and shake the words into the right order, and looked up at her. “Lydia, would you like to go out with me … sometime? For real?”.

Lydia’s heart had stopped beating completely now. She was sure of it. She had to be dreaming because there was no way that any of this could be real. She saw the regret start to form in Stiles’ eyes with every second that passed but it was taking her brain some time to find the right words again.  _ Please _ , she thought.

“Yes” she said.

“Really?” he seemed shocked.

“Yes” Lydia laughed. “Why are you so surprised?”.

“I haven’t thought this far ahead” Stiles admitted. “I didn’t really think you would say yes”.

“Why?”.

Stiles hesitated, tried to find the words to describe what he wanted to say. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted this to remain just … an image” he muttered, gestured at the air between them. 

“Stiles … I kissed you for a reason” Lydia replied. “I’m sorry if it didn’t seem that way at the time”.

“I was starting to think that you regretted it” he laughed, avoided her eyes.

“Because I didn’t mention it again. I was going to” Lydia whispered. “I’m sorry”.

“No, Lydia. It’s ok, really” Stiles looked up at her again, smiled faintly.

“So” Lydia hesitated. “Tomorrow night, maybe? If you still want to”.

“I’m sure Allison will know a good place” Stiles laughed. 

“Probably” Lydia smirked. “I wouldn’t be surprised”.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow? Seven, maybe?” he asked.

“Seven would be great” she replied. “I should probably … go” she hesitated. “But I’ll see you then”.

Lydia closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment. She took a deep breath before making her way over to Allison’s room, trying to be as casual as possible. She opened the door and noticed that both Allison and Kira were there. Perfect.

“Hey” she smiled at them both, closed Allison’s door behind her and pulled the books she’d gotten them out of her bag. 

“Hey” they smiled back.

“Enjoy your afternoon?” Allison asked.

“Well, I got you both a few things so I’m sure that makes up for you two being stuck here” Lydia shrugged, casually, handing them their books.

“Oh, you know me so well” Allison beamed down at the two books in her hands. “I’ll treasure them forever”.

“This edition has been out of print for years. Where did you find it?” Kira asked, staring down at her book in absolute awe. 

“Tiny little bookshops hold great treasures” Lydia smiled. She was glad they were both happy with their gifts, but she thought that though she’d just made their days, she was about to make their weeks. 

“Next time I’m going with you” Allison demanded.

“Of course”.

“Oh, and the press were really sucking today up so good job” Kira laughed. “And I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, of course”.

Lydia took a seat next to Allison on the couch. “Yeah they were following us around all day. It was kind of scary” she shrugged.

“They’re so creepy. Oh and your fans love you even more because of the pizza” Allison laughed. 

“Least I could do” Lydia smiled.

“I mean, you’re basically America’s sweetheart at the moment which is fantastic” Kira replied.

“Honestly, it what a great day. I mean, you guys know how much I love book hunting and there were some really good finds. And of course there’s the pizza. Oh, and Stiles asked me out” Lydia smirked.

“WHAT!”.

“Hold up a second” Kira leaned forward, her new book clasped carefully in her hands. “Did you just say that Stiles asked you out? Did I hear you correctly?”.

“You heard correctly” Lydia laughed.

“TELL US EVERYTHING!” Allison yelled.

“Shhh, he’ll hear you”.

“ _ Lydia!” _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be my last update of the year, which feels a little strange, I've been working on this fic for a large chunk of this year, I do hope to continue with that. Thank you all for reading, and all the best in 2017. I'll see you soon!!!


	16. Bright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so a few things. Firstly, I'm sorry for the delay in putting out this chapter. My family whisked me away on a spontaneous holiday and I was without wi-fi (and phone signal) for a lot of it so I didn't get a chance to update. Again, I'm sorry. Secondly, there's been a lot of positivity around this of late and I'm grateful. It makes me insanely happy that people are enjoying this. I love you all and I hope you like this chapter.  
> Chapter Title Song: Bright by Echosmith.

_ “And I see colours in a different way/ You make what doesn’t matter fade away” _

 

Stiles flopped down onto the couch happily. He was honestly in some kind of shock. Not only had he asked her out, but she’d said yes! This was honestly something he couldn’t have predicted at all. His first thought was that he had to call Scott. But of course Scott would be at work, or sleeping. Sometimes Stiles longed for the simplicity of their college dorm and their almost identical time tables. The real world was much harsher. So instead he quickly fired Scott a text telling him to call him as soon as he could. And until then he had to figure out what the  _ fuck  _ he was going to do until seven the next night. 

 

_ “Lydia’s probably already told you that I asked her out. What the fuck do I wear?”  _ he sent to Allison. 

 

A few minutes later his phone vibrated.

 

Allison:  _ ur in luck. Styling dates is my specialty ;) _

 

………. 

 

“Ok, ok. I’ll give you details” Lydia laughed. “But only because I’m genuinely concerned about how thin the walls are in this building”.

 

“Five star hotels would never have thin walls” Kira muttered.

 

“Tell us!” Allison encouraged. 

 

“Um” Lydia muttered. “We got back from the bookshops. I talked to some fans for a bit and then we made our way up here. He invited me into his room and we talked for a bit and then he just … asked me?”. Somehow it came out as a question, as if she was asking for their approval of the situation.

 

“Good but how did he ask you?” Allison pushed.

 

“He just asked me if I wanted to go out, but not for the image. On a real date” she shrugged.

 

“Well it’s good to see that he’s no longer a coward” Kira smirked.

 

“Oh, he’s definitely still a coward. This was a mere moment of strength” Allison teased. 

 

“Shush” Lydia laughed. “It was … really sweet”. 

 

“I’m just glad you’re happy” Allison leaned forward, took Lydia’s hands in hers. “It’s nice to see a guy without an ulterior motive interested in you”.

 

“You have our blessing” Kira laughed.

 

“I haven’t been on a date in years” Lydia realised, her eyes widening at the thought. “A real date, I mean” she clarified.

 

“I want it to be perfect” Kira smiled fondly. “Allison, you’ll know somewhere right?”.

 

“Of course! Don’t worry, it’ll be perfect” Allison smiled. 

 

………. 

 

_ “This call better be because you have good news or I swear I’ll come over there and ask her out for you myself”  _ Scott said as a form of greeting as soon as Stiles managed to answer his phone.

 

“Evening to you as well” Stiles joked.

 

_ “Stiles! _ ”.

 

“Scott, I’m about to make you day” Stiles beamed. He was in some state that was in between shock and awe and was really just warm and fuzzy inside. 

 

_ “Fucking finally!” Scott laughed. “Dude! Tell me everything!”. _

 

“Well” Stiles flopped down on his bed, “I’m not sure how much you’re keeping up with the gossip news but we hung out today”.

 

_ “Just the two of you?” _ Scott asked.

 

“Yes”.

 

_ “Good start” _ he praised. 

 

“Thank you, there’s a heap of bookstores here and Lydia’s really into that so we went and looked around in some of them” Stiles explained.

 

_ “Vintage book hunting? That’s some romantic comedy shit, I’ll have remember that the next time I have a date”. _

 

“I think it worked some kind of magic” Stiles laughed.

 

_ “Clearly”. _

 

“If you mock me then I won’t tell you the rest of the story” Stiles warned.

 

_ “Pfffft, you wouldn’t dare _ ” Scott smirked.

 

“Try me”.

 

_ “Alright, alright. Just tell me the damn story, Stiles”. _

 

“We came back from the book shops and everything. There were paps fucking everywhere man, I’ll never mock anyone for how they deal with that again. And she came into my room and I just asked her?”.

 

_ “And what did she say?” _ Scott prompted.

 

“She said yes, Scott”.

 

_ “Anything else? _ ” Scott pushed.

 

“She mentioned the kiss” Stiles shrugged, “said she did it for a reason”.

 

_ “Dude, she is so into you _ ” Scott laughed. 

 

“I’m still kind of shocked” Stiles muttered.

 

_ “If you fuck this up -”. _

 

“You don’t need to finish that sentence” Stiles interrupted. “How do I … not fuck this up?” he asked. 

 

………. 

 

The next morning the four of them met for their morning meeting to organise the day ahead. Stiles and Lydia spent the majority of the time not looking at each other purely because they would blush if they did. And Allison spent the entire time smirking at them cheekily. Kira remained as professional as ever, going over the plan for the day: three rounds of interviews that would take up most of the day. 

 

“Any questions?” Kira asked, looking up from her clipboard to Lydia. 

 

“Not really?” Lydia asked. She almost felt like she was being interrogated and that was solely because Allison had barely taken her eyes of her the entire time. She was way too smug this morning. 

 

“Good. I’ll see you in a hour” Kira smiled, then excused herself from the room.

 

“So” Allison smirked, leaned back in her chair comfortably. “Any plans for the day, Stiles?” she teased.

 

“I have to make a legitimate start on that article before I get fired” Stiles shrugged, looking at Allison instead of Lydia. 

 

“Probably a good idea” Allison laughed. “I’ll see you later. Lydia, ready to prepare for these interviews?”.

 

“I’m already exhausted” she laughed, followed Allison out of the room.

 

Stiles sat in silence for a few minutes, let the entirety of his situation settle in. The article was always pulling at the back of his mind. He knew it was the reason that he was there in the first place, even if that was a cover he would rather keep his job. He made his way back to his room trying to string words together in an order that would make the article as objective as possible. There was a specific way to approach this, and if his mind wasn’t a giant pile of mush he would have been able to do it a little easier. 

 

………. 

 

A few hours later there was a knock on Stiles’ door. In a few hours he’d only managed to write about four sentences and he was genuinely considering scrapping those as well. If he didn’t get his shit together soon he was definitely going to be fired. He knew Mr. Finstock would call in a few days wanting to know the progress he’d made and he would have none. Regardless, Stiles tried his best to push all those thoughts to the side and went to open the door. He wasn’t surprised to see Allison on the other side, she barged her way in the second the door was open. 

 

“Right” she said, spinning to face him. “You have a date with Lydia tonight”.

 

“How could I ever forget?” Stiles joked.

 

“You’re not going like that” Allison replied, indicating his clothes. “She needs to know that you’re putting effort into this”.

 

“You’ve seen my suitcase, Allison. This is practically all I have” Stiles laughed.

 

“Which is why I’m here” Allison reminded, “to help and guide you to your full date outfit potential”.

 

“Should I trust you?” Stiles asked.

 

Allison glared at him. “I’m a hundred percent sure you’ve never had an actual professional, trained stylist at your disposal for a date so how about you don’t piss me off?”.

 

“Done”.

 

“Good” Allison smiled sweetly. “I don’t have much time before I have to head back down to Lydia so my room. Now”.

 

Stiles nodded, followed Allison out of his hotel room and into hers. He wondered briefly if Allison somehow had contacts in every single city because she could pull together something amazing in no time at all and it was only mildly concerning. 

 

“You’re actually making me incredibly nervous” Stiles admitted, as if he hadn’t been nervous every second since meeting Lydia.

 

“I really don’t want you to fuck this up, Stiles” she said. “I know how good this can be for the both of you and Lydia deserves that right now”.

 

“Your concern for your friend is actually sweet” Stiles smiled.

 

“Contrary to popular belief, I do have feelings” Allison laughed.

 

“I know” Stiles smirked. 

 

“I’m sure you would do the same if you were in my place”.

 

“Absolutely”.

 

“Now” she muttered, “No plaid tonight”.

 

“I expected nothing less”.

 

Allison rolled her eyes. “Stiles, this takes a lot of trust” she explained. “You probably think I’m obsessive and crazy or something but it’s very important that this goes well and the two of you have a good time. But as part of Lydia’s team I also have to make it look polished because as much as I hate to say it, we also have to think of her image”.

 

“I know” Stiles replied. “I had no doubt that you would. I’m grateful for your help, really”.

 

“Lydia hasn’t been on a real date since she started dating Jackson and you weren’t around in that time but I’m sure you can picture how terrible dates with Jackson were”.

 

“I have no idea why she stayed with him so long but I would never question it” he shrugged.

 

“I feel like I’m putting a lot of pressure on you” Allison sighed, her eyes turning sad.

 

“I knew what I was getting into. I know that this whole thing is supposed to be fake. I’ll uphold the image that you guys wanted”.

 

Allison smiled faintly. “You’re such a good guy, Stiles. Out of all the jerks in Hollywood I’m so glad they picked you for this”.

 

“I think I can safely say that I am as well” he laughed.

 

“Now” Allison said thoughtfully. “Which colour do you prefer personally?”.

 

………. 

 

Press tours were a never ending cycle of the same questions over and over and Lydia was already sick of it even though they’d really only just begun. Three rounds of interviews meant being paired up with different people in her cast in front of three different interviewers. But because they all had the same questions they all merged into one anyway. She found her mind drifting. It wasn’t uncommon for it to happen on long days like this but usually her mind would travel somewhere else, instead she was thinking about Stiles. And the date they had that night. And how nervous she was. And how she didn’t want to fuck this one up. At all. The thoughts distracted her but she hoped it didn’t seem like it. The last thing she wanted was for these interviewers to have a bad experience and start spreading that was a disgusting person or something. So although a small part of her mind continually thought about Stiles, she tried her absolute best to focus on the task at hand. 

 

Allison had helped her pick out a dress earlier. It was black and lacy which was something that she might not have even considered wearing. Most of the time her image required lots of florals and pastels, which she was quite fond of, but it would be nice to try something completely different. Allison had mentioned something about subtly starting to change her image into a more fierce one. Something that showed that she was determined and independent and definitely moved on from a dark place in her life. And a little black dress and some red lipstick was one of the best way to do that. Embracing the darkness and moving on was practically what Allison was trying to help her symbolically represent. Lydia was absolutely thrilled for what was ahead. 

 

………. 

 

There was a knock on Stiles’ door at about 6:50. He’d just finished fixing up his hair as neatly as he could (he’d been nervously pulling on it a little throughout the day, this was only enhanced when he couldn’t piece together the words for his article) as he answered it. Allison was on the other side, she beamed at him as he pulled the door open. Her hands were suspiciously behind her back, probably holding something. 

 

“Hi Allison” he said, tried to smile but his nerves were getting the best of him again. The closer to the date it was, the more nervous he became. 

 

“You clean up nice, don’t you” she replied, smirking at him.

 

“All thanks to you”.

 

“Don’t forget the suit jacket I got you” she reminded, taking a step into the room as he went to grab it. She placed something on his entryway table without him noticing. 

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous in my life” Stiles muttered, throwing the suit jacket on and approaching her again.

 

She smoothed the jacket absently, making him look as presentable as possible. “I feel like a mum whose daughter is going off to senior prom or something” Allison replied, taking a small step back to admire Stiles. She had done a great job, not that Stiles was a difficult client. 

 

“Senior prom. Yeah I think that would feel like this” Stiles replied. 

 

“I’m too young for this” Allison shook her head.

 

“Maybe go out with Kira tonight” he suggested, shrugging.

 

“I would but we all have to work in the morning” she laughed.

 

Stiles nodded in understand. “Probably a wise idea considering how wasted you got last time” he smirked.

 

“Oh shush” Allison rolled her eyes, she pulled out her phone absently, checking the time. “Time for your debut” she looked up at him again.

 

Stiles nodded jerkily. “I’ve been on dates before but this feels so different” he admitted, regardless if she would mock him for it.

  
“Just be yourself, Stiles. That’s what Lydia likes about you” she ushered him through the door and out into the hallway, picking up what she’d left on the entryway table before closing the door behind him. “Do you have everything? Keys, wallet?” she asked.

 

“Mhm” Stiles muttered, he was staring at Lydia’s hotel room door, almost completely zoned out. 

 

“There’s something else I have to give you” Allison said, getting his attention again. She handed him a bouquet of roses, one that she’d picked out herself and knew that Lydia would love. If there was one thing she knew that Jackson never did, it was that he never gave Lydia gifts unless he felt like he had to. She didn’t even recall him getting her an anniversary gift. Lydia was a girl who deserved flowers, and that’s why she thrust them at Stiles before pushing him over the other side of the hallway in front of Lydia’s hotel room door. “You two kids have fun” she said, before disappearing into her own room. 

 

Stiles looked down at the flowers in his hands. Well, Allison really did go all out. He looked up at the door in front of him, knocking almost absently. When Lydia pulled the door open his world seemed to stop. She was beautiful. She’d always been beautiful, but somehow she was like a beacon of light standing in front of him. Stiles was a goner, that much he did know.

 

“Hi Stiles” Lydia beamed up at him. “Ooh flowers” she said, noticing the roses in his hands.

 

“I’m not even going to lie to you, Allison just handed these to me a second ago” he said to her, handing the flowers to her with a slightly embarrassed smile. 

 

Lydia laughed, took the flowers from him. “That would explain why a vase randomly appeared in my room while I was doing interviews today” she said. “They’re beautiful” she added. She popped back into her room again, placing the flowers in a vase then pouring some water into it for them quickly. She grabbed her clutch and made her way back to the door where Stiles was still standing.

 

“You’re beautiful” Stiles said as she reached him. Not ‘you look beautiful’ because that would imply that she only looked beautiful in this moment, which would of course be a lie. Lydia was stunning all of the time, even when she wasn’t trying to be.

 

Lydia smiled at him, blushing. She turned to close her hotel room door in an attempt to avoid his eyes for just a moment. Lydia received compliments all the time; from her fans, from gross male interviewers, but never had they meant as much to her as it did coming from Stiles. 

 

“Shall we?” Stiles muttered, offered her his arm politely.

 

Lydia laughed, linked her arm through his. “Has Allison told you where we’re going?” she asked him as they walked towards the elevator. 

 

Stiles shook his head. “She hasn’t told me a thing, just that everything was taken care of” he replied.

 

“Hm, that’s what she told me as well” Lydia muttered. She wasn’t sure of what her best friend had planned, but she  _ was _ sure that it would be amazing. And for that, she was grateful. She just wasn’t very fond of surprises. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last thing, I'm buried under an insane amount of personal stuff right now and this fic isn't my priority at the moment. It might be a while until the next update comes out. Fair warning.   
> Hopefully, I'll see you all soon <3


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